They All Lived Story 55: Survival of
by LadyWordsmith
Summary: Oct 1971-Mar 1972. When disaster strikes Aerugo, Amestris sends humanitarian aid. Ed, Winry, Al, and family brave their Southern neighbor's borders to assist, but the Mustang family  and many others  face possible elimination by hidden dangers.
1. Chapter 1

**October 2****nd****, 1971**

"This casserole is fabulous, Mom," Reichart Elric grinned over his plate at the crowded dinner table in his parents' house. It was always nice to have a good family meal, even if he and Deanna did live just a hill over.

"Fantastic," Urey agreed between bites.

"Well, thanks," Cassie chuckled. "Though if you keep going on about it like this, I'm going to wonder if you've been giving me false compliments about the rest of my cooking your whole lives."

"Not at all," Grandpa Ed shook his head as he refilled his plate. "It just means that you've somehow managed to perfect perfection."

"Oh, I see."

It was definitely a crowded evening in the old Rockbell-Elric house. Not only Reichart and Deanna, but his parents, his three younger brothers and sister, Grandma and Grandpa, and even Great Uncle Alphonse and Great Aunt Elicia, who had stayed in Resembool for a nice long visit after the summer weddings.

Reichart couldn't help glancing next to him at Deanna who was chatting with Grandma Winry and Elicia over the meal, her plate only half eaten. They'd been married since July; a short but wonderful couple of months that had made him happier than he'd dared to hope, but had dared to dream. Settled into their house, content in Resembool, with such a beautiful, amazing….

"Hey, Art!"

Reichart blinked and looked at Ian. His fourteen-year-old brother was grinning wickedly at him.

Ian shook his head. "You could at least pay attention when I'm telling a story about my acting career," he pointed out. "You'll have plenty of time to think about other things later."

"How about you don't worry about what I'm thinking about," Reichart resisted the urge to fling a pat of butter at his little brother. He was too old for that kind of thing now… really. Instead he slathered it on his wheat roll and wisely told himself not to tell Ian he wasn't old enough to think about what Ian obviously assumed Reichart was thinking about. His brother already spent way more time concerning himself with girls than Reichart had at that age. Of course, by fourteen, he'd already had his eyes and heart set towards Deanna, so maybe that wasn't a fair comparison.

Obviously aware that ribbing Reichart would get him nowhere, Ian turned his attention and the rest of his story on Urey and Great Uncle Alphonse.

"Anybody want seconds, or thirds?" Reichart's mother asked as she stood and turned to the casserole dish on the sideboard.

"I do!" Grandpa Ed grinned, holding out his plate.

"Or fourths," Grandma Winry snickered. "No thanks, Cassie."

A chorus of yeses from younger boys was met with refilled plates. "Deanna?" Cassie asked as she turned back around.

"No thank you," Deanna replied, smiling even as she shook her head.

Reichart noted the remaining couple of bites on her plate and while he wasn't surprised, his mother looked concerned.

"You're sure?" Cassie asked her daughter-in-law.

"Yes, I'm full," Deanna assured her.

"All right, then." Cassie served out the few remaining bits to the rest of the boys and put the casserole dish in the sink before returning to the table. "Time for dessert."

Dessert turned out to be warm peach cobbler with fresh local-made vanilla ice cream, made from the milk of the cows at Deanna's folks' dairy to be exact.

Reichart knew he was in for questions when Deanna turned down dessert as well, and politely excused herself to use the rest room.

"Something you'd like to tell us?" Aldon asked pointedly, almost as soon as Deanna left the room. He wasn't the only one giving him curious looks. Every adult in the room was looking at him. Ian just kept on telling his story to Urey and Ted.

Reichart shook his head and stuck his fork in his mouth. "Nope."

"_Reichart_."

"You can stop glaring," Deanna's voice came from the hallway as she rejoined them, looking just a bit pale. She chuckled. "I made him promise."

Reichart relaxed as all eyes left him and turned to his wife. It was hard keeping anything a secret in this family!

"So we're right then." Grandma Winry was smiling. It wasn't even a question.

Deanna nodded as she came back to the table. "Art told me we couldn't keep it quiet," she admitted with a rueful little smile.

Now they had the attention of the younger folk at the table. Urey, at least, seemed to have picked up on it.

"Keep what quiet?" Ian looked at them suspiciously.

Reichart slipped one arm around his wife's shoulder as Deanna sat down. She replied casually, "I'm pregnant."

"Already?" Ian exclaimed, staring at Reichart. "Wow that didn't take you long, did it?"

"Ian!" Cassie glared at her son.

Reichart had to bite his tongue not to laugh at his mother's expression. Apparently Grandpa Ed had no such compunction, as he started snickering.

His father looked mildly stunned, but it didn't last long. "Congratulations," he said to Reichart as half the table erupted with baby questions, Reichart was happy to let Deanna answer.

The baby was due at the end of April. Yes, they were excited. No, they hadn't come up with any names yet.

"Thanks," Reichart smiled at his father. "There goes our peace and quiet."

"Get used to it," Aldon laughed. "The last time your mother and I had peace and quiet was before Coran was born."

"Funny," Reichart grinned. "But the way that story goes, it wasn't all that quiet at Briggs before Coran either." In fact, since the Larsons had moved into town, Reichart had managed to pry some very interesting stories out of Ollie Larson about his and Aldon's Briggs adventures.

"They were still quieter than a house full of you guys," Aldon replied. "Not that we'd trade it for anything."

Reichart leaned back, sipping his cup of tea. "Good thing," he teased. "I'd hate to think we were all accidents, or the product of unbridled lust."

He had the satisfaction of watching his father's face go blank. The comment earned him a shove in the shoulder a moment later. "And just how are you going to answer that accusation when your brood asks _you_ that in nineteen years?" Aldon asked.

At that moment Reichart had the answer he'd already really known his father would give him. "I love my wife."

**October 3****rd****, 1971**

The soft white sand of the southern Aerugean beach seemed to go on forever under the cloudless powder blue sky. A seagull drifted on the air current, seeming to hang in mid-air and only the rustle of the wind through the palms and the slow lapping roar of the waves on the beach were strong enough to cover the sounds of people playing on the shore.

Lounging on a beach chair, Roy Mustang –second in his family to bear that name and the first born to it— admired the view and wondered how his counterparts back in Central were enjoying what was reported to be a wet and chilly fall.  
>He doubted the guys in his class had the view he did; the swath of beach dotted with sun-tanned barely clad bodies, many of them beautiful woman. Directly in front of him, four played at a game of volleyball. Three were dark as natives from months in the Aerugean sun; and the fourth a lean, graceful blonde in a simple black one-piece suit.<p>

Too bad he was related to every girl on this end of the beach.

"I got it!" Rochelle grinned and jumped in the air as her spike send the ball down sharply between Théa and their mother. She high-fived her team-mate, Grandma Riza, enthusiastically. "We won!"

"Well played," Riza grinned.

"We'll get you next time," Théa chuckled, picking up the ball as they abandoned the net for use by the next group of eager vacationers; a group of college-age coeds. Though several of the guys' eyes clearly went to Théa and Rochelle, sizing up the younger women.

_My sisters should not be old enough to wear bikinis. _

Not that Théa looked much younger than the college girls now, at fifteen, having inherited the curves of both sides of the family.

Rochelle was only thirteen, but developed enough she was often mistaken for a high school girl. Fortunately her personality was still innocent and childlike enough that the mistake didn't happen often or for long.

_If I have to chase any more boys away from my sisters I'm going to use alchemy to do it._

His family had been in Aerugo since summer, and his sisters were fully enjoying a year in the Aerugean schools, though the school they attended was a private school in Bueáire, that accepted the children of diplomats as well as those of important Aerugean families. Roy had been impressed with how well they were getting along, though he remembered that his mother had been in school with his father in Central when her father was ambassador to Amestris years ago.  
>Roy had come down with Grandma Riza for the fall holiday. Having not come down over the summer, he hadn't seen the rest of his family in months. He didn't mind admitting he had missed them, even if he had learned a lot studying with Edward Elric and Trisha in Resembool.<p>

He wondered what his girlfriend would say if she could see him lounging around on a beach, doing absolutely nothing. _Hopefully she'd be here with me. I wouldn't mind seeing Trisha in a bikini._

A brightly colored towel smacked him in the face. "Hey, lazy," Rochelle giggled. "Shouldn't you be training or something?"

Roy snatched the towel, grinning at his little sister. "Not on vacation I shouldn't. Though maybe Dad should." He glanced over at the chair next to him, where his father was passed out under the shade of an umbrella, looking quite relaxed. "He might be permanently attached to that chair by now."

"Oh I don't think so," his mother chuckled softly, leaning over and whispering something into Maes' ear.

Roy managed not to snicker as his father came instantly awake, catching Elena's hand before it could tickle his side. His parents' eyes met, and for a moment Roy was sure the rest of them were forgotten. This time in Aerugo had clearly been good for his parents.

It was the whimpering of one of Riza's dogs that broke the moment. Roy glanced over to his other side, where the four foxy-eared curly tailed dogs were lying in a well behaved line in the shade. His grandmother had refused to leave them behind on this trip. One of the female reds, Yelke, was carrying pups out of the black-and-cream male, Hiko. Hiko and his dark-red sesame sister, Jima, were descendents of his grandmother's first dog, Hayate. Yelke and the other red female, Mora, were newer acquisitions, specifically for breeding purposes. _Lucky dog._

"I'd say it's dinner time," Riza commented as she crouched down and gave Yelke a pat on the head, for it was the pregnant female who had whimpered.

"Sounds great to me," Maes chuckled, stretching. "I'm starved."

"After not doing anything all day?" Elena smiled.

"That was some serious relaxation," Maes stood up and kissed her cheek. "Don't worry," he said softly into Elena's ear so softly Roy almost missed it. "You can help me work it off later."

There were some things a seventeen-year-old just didn't need to hear his parents talk about. Though really, Roy would rather hear his parents' flirtations than the fighting that had plagued parts of his earlier childhood. "Dinner sounds good," he agreed, getting up and slipping on the sandals he had worn down to the beach from the resort they were staying at for the holiday. "Tonight's supposed to be that sand-pit pork roast isn't it?"

"And a dance!" Théa grinned as she wrapped a towel around her slim waist. Her long dark hair waved in the strong wind blowing in off the ocean.

"Who cares about that part?" Roy shrugged, though he grinned. He liked tweaking his sister.

"Oh, don't you?" Théa asked. "There are an awful lot of girls at the resort who think you're cute."

"Who wouldn't last two seconds in a fight with Trisha," Roy replied loyally. Yes, there were a lot of very attractive girls vacationing down here, but none of them was _his_ girl. Besides, if he got too close to any of them _he_ wouldn't last two seconds facing down her wrath!

"You just have weird taste in girls." Théa shrugged.

"Well I don't see what you see in that Cretan guy," Roy countered as he picked up the picnic basket they had brought down for lunch.

Maes' eyes went straight to his oldest daughter. "What Cretan guy?"

Roy tried not to look guilty as Théa gave him a dirty look. "Just a guy here with his uncle, Daddy. We were having a nice conversation about the wildlife and the plants here the other day."

"Is that all?" Maes asked suspiciously.

"It's true," Rochelle cut in, backing up her sister. "Nikolaos' uncle is a naturalist. He specializes in jungle and rainforest ecology."

"Sounds fascinating," Elena smiled, planting one hand firmly on Maes' shoulder. "I'm sure he's a very nice boy. Now let's get back up to the hotel and get dressed for dinner."

* * *

><p>At times like these, it was so easy for Maes to almost forget that, aside from Elena, his family wasn't native Aerugean. Of course, all three of his children were half-Aerugean, and rather looked the part, tanning much better than he ever did, but watching them so comfortably conversing in both languages, enjoying the food –his daughters very happily wearing the latest in Aerugean fashion- it was like they had lived here for years instead of merely months with the occasional family vacation.<p>

The resort's celebration was set up along the beach, though nearly a half-mile back from where they had been earlier that day, as the resort itself sat at the top of a rocky ridge-line above the beach. When the tide came in, it moved up that far, and tonight it seemed particularly high. The moon only glinted on it from time to time when it peaked through the clouds, but down under the lantern light by the tables, where a live band was playing dance music, no one seemed to mind that it wasn't a starry night.

Stuffed full of amazing pit barbecued pork and tropical fruits and vegetables, Maes was happy to lean back and enjoy crowd watching, grateful he'd gone for a loose, comfortable shirt with a tropical print of orange, red, and green. Besides which, he had Elena beside him, in a lovely sundress of rich wine burgundy, her head resting sleepily against his shoulder as his arm draped around hers. "Tired?" he asked with a soft chuckle.

"Mmmhmm," she nodded, smiling. "We did have a lot of fun today. It's been years since I played beach volleyball."

"Well you looked fabulous doing it," Maes assured her, grateful –as he was often- that his wife still looked fabulous, and certainly younger than their early-forties. Privately, he'd go so far as to say she looked almost young enough to be  
>Théa's older sister instead of her mother, but the last time he'd told Elena that, she's smiled and told him his eyesight must be going.<p>

Théa was drawing a lot of attention herself, mostly from boys, though Maes was glad to see that she didn't seem to be openly flirting, just holding friendly conversation. Rochelle was giggling with some other vacationing girls her own age. Roy, he noticed, seemed to have positioned himself where he could keep an eye on his sisters, though he was chatting with one of the other guys. Unsurprisingly, he wasn't giving much attention to the girls except to be polite. With Trisha back home, Maes was sure it would be hard to be distracted by the girls here.

It was funnier watching the middle-aged or older men who were here –some with or without female companions- attempting to catch his mother's attention. The only one who had gotten so much as a smile had been the gentleman smart enough to offer a few bites of his pork to the dogs and chatted with Riza for nearly half an hour about them and dogs in general. Apparently he had raised retrievers himself for decades.

Elena shifted on his shoulder. "You always think I look fabulous."

"Because you do," Maes replied matter-of-factly. "Why? Don't you think I look fabulous?"

Elena looked up at him and her mouth quirked into an amused smile. "I think you're starting to look a bit of a scoundrel and a vagabond… a soft one at that," she teased, poking him in the side.

Maes wriggled as her finger tickled him just below the ribs. "Hey! Scoundrel I don't mind," he chuckled, running one hand through his hair. It could probably use a trim, he conceded. "But I object to the rest. Just because I'm the respectable husband of the ambassador from Amestris doesn't mean I've gone soft."

"Okay, softer," Elena conceded. "That's not a bad thing. You seem much more relaxed here. I'm so glad we came."

"Me too." Maes leaned in to kiss her cheek. "I-"

The world lurched with a violent bang that sounded like cannon shot, and suddenly he was catching Elena instead of kissing her. "What was that?" He exclaimed as everyone stopped dead and the beach fell silent.

"I don't…" Elena struggled to sit up. "Was it an earthquake?"

The rumbling had already died away to nothing.

People were helping each other to their feet, babbling now, concerned.

Maes glanced around for his family. He spotted his mother and all three kids quickly. Impressively, they all seemed to have kept their feet and were among those helping others up. He smiled reassuringly at Elena. "Well that was something. At least it's over."

The beach lurched again, just as lightning split the sky.

Out across the ocean –the direction from which the rolling earth seemed to be coming- was a black tower of clouds against the night sky, quickly swallowing the few stars that dared to peak through the softer clouds. Lightning danced across the sky.

"I'm sorry folks," the event coordinator apologized, stepping up on the stage, where the musicians had stopped playing and were righting instruments and stands. "It looks like we'll have to move the rest of tonight's festivities indoors. Please don't panic! We sometimes get little rumbles like this."

"That wasn't a little rumble," Riza commented softly as she joined them, the dogs on her heels looking concerned.

"Still, let's go." Elena was holding firmly on to Maes' arm as they headed towards the cut in the ridge that led to the path back up to the resort on top of the cliff. The children gravitated towards them in the crowd as they moved.

They were less than half way there when a whining siren split the air with a painful scream, and people began to break into a run.

"What's going on?" Rochelle asked, looking around wide-eyed.

"We already know about the storm. They can't be warning people about the quake. It's too late," Roy added as the ground beneath them shuddered again, though not as strongly as before.

"Théa!" a voice Maes didn't recognize shouted over the rising wind and clamoring voices. He glanced sideways as the rain started coming down in fat drops, and spotted a tanned young man with dark hair pushing his way through the crowd towards them.

"Nik!" Théa called back. "Do you know what's going on?"

"Run!" Nikolaos –or so Maes assumed- shouted. "Tsunami!"

Maes' blood ran cold. "Go," He pushed Elena ahead of him as he glanced back. Way out under the stormclouds, in the flash of the light-show above, he caught a glimpse of something oddly reflective…and tall. From that distance it barely appeared to be moving, except that it hadn't been there less than a minute ago. A wall of water moving faster than a man had any hope of running, but they had distance on their side.

They ran like Maes hadn't run in years, though he kept his eyes flitting from one family member to another, keeping track of them in the chaos. If anyone fell, he wasn't about to let them get left behind or half-trampled.

They hit the trail and pelted up it, until a stitch formed in Maes' side and it was all he could do not to double over. They just had to get to the top. The wall wasn't that tall, was it? No, they would be safely inside the resort soon. The top of the ridge would be high enough.

Except that the resort was no longer standing. Or rather, part of the building was there, but in the driving, stinging rain, Maes could see that half of it lay dark, and the quake had collapsed the entire south-west corner. Windows were gone in half the building, and it creaked in the growing wind.

"This way!"

It was that boy again. "Where are we supposed to be going?" Maes snapped. The kid couldn't be more than eighteen.

"They've called for an evacuation of the building," Nikolaos shouted back. "My uncle Engelo knows the evacuation route" He pointed off to the west, left along the cliff. "We go inland there."

"Why are half the people going that way?" Riza asked, gesturing to the others.

"There's two routes," Nikolaos replied. "But this one's faster, and it'll get us up-land faster."

"Isn't the cliff high enough?" Rochelle gasped, locks of soaked hair streaming in her face. The rain was cold, and hard.

The boy's face went stone serious. "Do you want to stand around here waiting to find out? Whole coastline's being evacuated. We have half an hour if we're lucky."

"What about our stuff?" Théa looking longingly at the half destroyed building.

"We can replace it," Maes replied. There wasn't time to stand around debating. The crowd was thinning around them as people were herded towards the escape routes. No one was being allowed back inside. "All right, boy –Nikolaos is it? - lead the way." He just hoped he didn't regret that call.

**October 4****th****, 1971**

No amount of coffee could keep yawns from the faces of the Amestrian military officers crammed into General Kane's conference room at six in the morning, but it certainly wasn't needed to get their minds going. The horror of the news coming over the radio and reported on the television in the wee hours of the morning was enough to shake even the worst night-owl from sleep.

The room was crammed with owlishly-blinking officers, sitting around the conference table and crammed in along the walls. The emergency calls had come early. Sara Heimler was just glad she rated a chair near the front. She sat with Kane's seat to her left, and Cal Fischer and Tore Closson to her right.

It had been a long time since she'd looked at a map of Aerugo, but the cities and the layout of the country were still unsettlingly familiar. Only this time, they weren't going to war with the people of Aerugo… just the land.

Kane was holding up a pointer, drawing a circle in the air around the lower plains that covered nearly the bottom quarter of the country. "The earthquakes last night had three major impacts," he was saying, even though it was currently repeating a lot of what they had heard on the radio. "The first was, of course, building damage across the bottom half of the country, where the shock hit hardest from this point," he tapped the shoreline, "and spreading outward. The secondary effect was, of course, the tsunami reported to have hit half an hour later." He went back to circling the plains. "It has proceeded to push inland, flooding the entire southern plain. There has been a mass evacuation of the area already, but they're reporting large numbers of missing and casualties, as well as predicting the destruction of sixty percent of this year's harvest."

"Sixty percent of the crops in that area?" Felix Tringham asked.

"Of the crops for the entire country," Kane replied flatly. "This is their bread basket, if you will."

"Shit."

"Exactly my sentiment Mr. Tringham."

"What about the volcanic eruption?" a voice Sara recognized as one of this year's new alchemists, asked from the back of the room.

"Our third problem," Kane sighed. His pointer came to rest with a hard smack right on top of the resort city of Havah. "Also a result of the earthquakes, or so I'm told, was the pyroclastic eruption of a long-dormant volcano nearly on top of Havah. A large portion of the Eastern side of the city has been destroyed, and the rest is in disarray. There has been mass evacuation from this area as well, and people are still fleeing. There's panic, injuries, deaths, and unfortunately, we can inevitably expecting looting and violence out of this little scenario with the shortages of food and housing, and the desperation that is likely to follow, both realistically and however much it's blown out of proportion in people's heads."

"Sounds like a lousy situation, sir," the new alchemist –Tanner Henson she remembered now- commented.

"That would be an understatement." Kane looked around the room. "President Rehnquist received a call this morning from Bueáire, which is also dealing with severe damage from the earthquakes, thanks to its proximity to the ocean, though it was fortunately too far inland and above sea level to be affected by the tsunami. The Aerugean government has not only declared a full state of emergency, but they are asking for Amestris' aid in their time of crisis."

"What kind of aid?" a female alchemist asked.

"Humanitarian mostly," Kane replied. "They're begging for doctors, engineers and architects and workers who can help clean things up and rebuild what's been knocked down. The people need care, supplies, and comfort. From us," he gestured around the room at the State Alchemists, "They're asking for what we do best; some of everything. The military will be sending small units down to help the Aerugean military and civilian police force keep the peace and discourage looting. We will also be doing a variety of jobs in helping with rebuilding, according to your individual strengths. The Alchemists are not general manual labor, nor will we be used as weapons."

A fact Sara doubted the newer alchemists were capable of fully appreciating. So many of them had joined up after the last war. She sipped her coffee. "So how are we being deployed?"

"In small units, of primarily alchemists, though I have received word that we will be assigned regular soldiers to help with the peacekeeping portion of the job. We are, apparently, too important to be left to fend for ourselves," he smiled at the irony.

"Nice that someone finally noticed," Cal quipped.

Kane did not dignify the sarcasm with a response. "Myself and Brigadier General Heimler will each be in charge of the two main units. Most of you will remain in your usual assigned groups. Twilight," he gave Sara a grim smile. "Feel free to select whoever you feel you need on your team. You're going to Havah. I've been told that I am to take my units to Bueáire."

So the cities were to be salvaged first. That made sense. Sara nodded. "When are we deploying, sir?" Her recent promotion didn't sound nearly so nice when it came with the unpleasant task of heading up what promised to be a very depressing and difficult mission.

"Regular military units are already mobilizing," Kane replied. "We'll be on the trains in five days. If you know anyone in the civilian sector with skills that will be of use who might be willing to help out, talk to them. You know where to send all have until then to inform your families, pack, and be ready. Any further questions?"

He got none.

"Very well. Dismissed."

Sara stood, and stretched until her back popped repeatedly.

"Well if there was ever a place I wasn't interested in seeing again," Cal chuckled beside her.

"You're far too chipper for this early in the morning," Sara grumbled at him. "Especially given I know you don't like mornings."

"I was already up with Charlie when the call came," Cal admitted, referring to his infant son. "Though I wasn't expecting diaper duty to turn into disaster relief."

Tore, at least, looked as tired as Sara felt. he yawned and drained the last of the coffee in his mug. "This wasn't exactly how I wanted to get a vacation in Aerugo."

"Believe me," Sara sighed. "This won't be any kind of a vacation."

"Oh I know that," Tore replied. "I'm not looking forward to telling Charisa I'll be gone for months though. We had plans."

"What kind of plans?" Cal asked with a knowing grin.

"Does it matter?" Sara cut in. "Just get ready. I want both of you with me on this mission, so don't go getting yourselves killed by your wives before it's time to go."

Both smart-asses saluted. "Yes, Ma'am!"


	2. Chapter 2

**October 5****th****, 1971**

"Well, now what do we do?"

Roy looked at his father, waiting and hoping he had an answer to the question on everybody's minds as they stood in the pouring rain, in the pre-dawn light, staring at the huge gaping crack that had bisected the road; more of a ravine really, at least twenty feet deep, thirty feet across, and filled with the rushing flood waters of some nearby river it had also bisected.

Beside him, his father and grandmother were both looking at the situation with nearly identical thoughtful expressions. Military minds in action. Behind him, Roy turned and he could see Rochelle and Théa, soaked and chilled like the rest of them, but looking particularly miserable in their now-bedraggled sun dresses, which were soaked, mud-splattered, and torn in places from a night's run down the rainforest road that had led them this far.

"If I may," Nikolaos' uncle Engelo said in his thick accent. "If this follows the line I believe it does, than it has probably broken for miles in either direction. In either case, there was no other road through this area. If there was, the bridge would be gone there as well."

"So heading back to Bueáire is a waste of time," Riza sighed. "Any more news from that radio?"

Nikolaos, who was carrying a short-wave radio, was still fiddling with the buttons. "Nothing since that last report," he replied apologetically.

"Then we have to assume Bueáire is in no better shape," Maes nodded.

Roy bit back a curse. The only report they had managed to pick up had been during a brief break, when everyone had been panting, exhausted, and the girls unable to keep up. Volcanic eruption up by Havah, rampant flooding from the tsunami wave they had only avoided by scrambling up into the hills too high for the water to reach despite how quickly it had risen behind them.

They couldn't go back, and they couldn't go forward.

"We go West," Maes finally said into the slowly growing morning gloom.

"There's nothing out there," Elena blurted out in objection. Roy had never seen his mother so bedraggled. "Just rainforest."

Maes turned and looked at them all with more surety than Roy could remember ever seeing on his face before. "We have two experts with us who know this forest," he gestured to Engelo and Nikolaos. "Assuming they haven't been exaggerating their abilities."

"Not a bit," Engelo replied with a short shake of his head.

"We don't have any supplies," Elena objection again.

"There are small towns between here and the Cretan border," Maes replied calmly. "They can't all be disasters."

"Besides," Grandma Riza added. "We have hunting dogs, and weapons."

Roy could only wonder how his grandmother had managed to hide the three small guns she pulled out of almost nowhere on her person. At least she had been sensible enough to wear slacks and a blouse instead of a dress to the beach. Still, he should have known his grandmother was armed.

The dogs, sitting at her feet, looking nearly as bedraggled as the rest of them, perked up at the mention of them.

"They're trained to hunt?" Rochelle looked at the dogs in surprise.

Riza smiled. "You didn't think all they could do was sit and stay did you?"

Maes crossed the leaf-strewn clearing and took Elena in his arms. "I know it's hard, sweetheart, but you've just got to trust that we can get out of this. You've survived the wilds before. Where's my brave girl who fled Bueáire with the Aerugean insurgents on her tail?"

"We didn't have children then," the words came out in almost a whisper.

Roy felt a twinge of guilt. His mother wasn't worried for herself; she was worried about them. Or, more likely, about his sisters. Roy could take care of himself. "We'll be fine, Mom," he smiled reassuringly. "Think of it as an extended… unexpected campout."

That earned him a tired smile.

"So, we go to Creta," Engelo commented into the quiet that fell. "Good. It's the fastest way out of here, and there will be disaster relief coming from that direction I'm sure of it."

Maes nodded. "Count on it."

It felt good to have a plan. Roy was glad his father didn't seem to see being surrounded by natural disasters, without supplies, bedraggled and wet, as anything to panic about. Of course, he could be acting, but Roy didn't remember his father being all that good at hiding his thoughts.

"All right," his mother nodded. "Let's go."

**October 7****th****, 1971**

It took less time than the Amestrians anticipated before it seemed like half of Aerugo was banging on the border, begging for assistance and to cross out of their country all together, thanks to the widespread panic and fear that had taken hold of the people, despite the government's attempts to calm, reassure, and send assistance. It didn't help that they had lost nearly half their military in the disaster. The major base along the Southern shoreline was just gone, and in Havah, there had been heavy losses from men off duty or trying to save civilians from the volcanic destruction and, more importantly, the buildings damaged in the earthquake.

Sara dreaded this mission more with every passing hour. As much as she had done disaster relief in smaller scenarios over the years, they were always the toughest. There would be deaths and gruesome injuries that there was no way to avoid seeing. Not that there weren't in war, but in this case, most of them would be civilians; elderly, women, children.

"Sara."

"What?" She glanced over her shoulder at Franz, who stood behind her, looking concerned.

"You've been staring at your pack for ten minutes, Belle." He slipped his arms around her waist. "Sen for your thoughts?"

Sara turned in his arms, and wrapped hers around him, abandoning her after dinner packing for the moment. "I wish you were coming with me," she replied softly.

"Me too," Franz cuddled her closer. "But someone's got to stay here with the kids, and you're the one they need. Just think about the amazing romantic reunion we'll have when you get back, all right?"

"That better be damned amazing," Sara replied, though she couldn't help a chuckle.

"Oh it will be," Franz's voice dropped. "Slip out of town. Bed and breakfast, couple of days, just you and me… no clothing…"

"Excuse me."

Mood gone. Sara glanced around Franz's shoulders at her teenage daughter, standing in the doorway. "What did you need, Trisha?"

"Besides earplugs?" Trisha commented without much humor. "I wanted to talk to you."

Sara knew that tone. "About?"

Trisha seemed to be gathering her courage. "Take me with you."

She had hoped it wouldn't be that. She stepped away from Franz and approached their daughter. "Sweetie, I know you haven't heard anything from Roy but that doesn't mean—"

"This isn't just about Roy!" Trisha cut her off with surprising vehemence. "I mean, yeah, I'm worried about the Mustangs, but what about all those innocent people who can't even take care of themselves? You said they're asking for civilian assistance too. I'm an alchemist, and I'm good! You say so. Grandpa says so. I want to help."

"No," Sara replied flatly.

Her daughter's expression darkened. "How can you say that? You of all people!"

"It's the middle of the school year."

"That didn't stop you," Trisha replied, meeting Sara's eyes without a hint of fear.

_Damn it. Why do you have to start acting like me now?_ "That didn't make me smart."

"I'm not a little kid," Trisha replied. "I'm only a year away from taking the State Alchemy Exams, and you know I'll pass. What's more important, helping Aerugo or a few missed tests I could pass in my sleep?"

Sara's mouth was open to object again when she felt a hand on her shoulder. Startled, she looked at Franz. Her husband looked serious… but there was a twinkle of amusement in the eyes behind those glasses. He couldn't really be suggesting they let her go? Finally, she sighed. "I need to talk this over with your father."

Trisha did not object. "All right. Let me know when you decide." Then she turned and left, closing the door solidly behind her.

Sara rounded on Franz. "You want me to let her go, don't you?"

"Do you think she'll stay if you say no?" Franz asked calmly. "She's not you, Sara. If you tell her to stay here, she actually might, but she'll resent it. And she makes good points. She's a very talented alchemist. On top of that, she's got all the necessary fighting skills to keep herself safe, thanks to you and Ed. This isn't a war, and it's the kind of thing she'll be facing from here on out. Would you really tell her to stay here, do nothing, and have nothing to keep her mind off the fact that her best friend and his entire family are missing?"

Sara noticed he didn't mention the possibility that the Mustangs were dead. The only word Bueáire had on Amestris' ambassador was that they had been vacationing at a resort on the ocean. A resort that was currently under millions of gallons of saltwater. "You're irritating when you're right." She sat down on the edge of the bed.

Franz sat down beside her. "Good think you love me then." He smiled. "Just be glad James is too young to even think about going. He and I can hold down the house while you're gone. You know," his arm went around her shoulder. "It's hard to see my girls go off into danger. But you assign Trisha to a group you trust and she'll be fine. It's you I worry about."

"Me?"

"Who's the one who showed up in the desert against all regulations and bullied her way into the fighting?" Franz chuckled. "You get into almost as many misadventures on missions the stories Ed and Al tell. You're a higher profile target than I ever have been too," he added. "The political situation in Aerugo is still unstable, and this won't help. Be careful, all right?"

"As much as I ever can," she promised, resting her head against his shoulder. Her long braid fell between them. "As you said, it's not a war, and I've got Tore, and Cal, and Jean Stevens in my group. Kane told me they're sending us to Havah, while he's going straight to Bueáire. We'll be all right. I'm just dreading the civilian carnage. It always hurts more than regular warfare, odd as that sounds."

"It makes sense," Franz replied softly. "Those of us who join the military know we might die, we've accepted it. We're adults, for the most part. Losing people who aren't supposed to be in danger is hard." He gave her a squeeze. "Do you want to tell Trisha?"

"I will," Sara promised, pulling Franz to her on a growing impulse, and kissing him. She was going to miss him terribly. "Later."

* * *

><p>There were evenings where Tore was grateful that his son went to bed without argument most nights; that General Breda wasn't inclined to stay up late unless he was reading in bed, downstairs; that Charisa was capable of being quiet in the bedroom.<p>

Tonight was one of those evenings. He lay in bed, his arms around his wife, grateful for the temporarily relief of the anxieties that had been building inside him for days. Charisa's rich russet curls tickled his nose; smelling of lilacs. Her warm, soft skin felt good against his. "I'm going to miss you," he murmured into her hair.

"Good," Charisa replied with a little smile. "That means you'll do your best to come home sooner."

"That's the truth."

Charisa shifted, tilting her head so she could look him in the eye. "Dare will be okay. He'll miss you, but that's not a bad thing. It just means he'll be happy when you come home." Then she laughed at the surprise that apparently showed in his face. "Yes, I know that's who you're worried about. I'll be fine; swamped with work, spending time taking care of Dare, here with Dad and everything going on almost as normal. I know it's Dare you're more concerned about than me, and that's the way it ought to be."

"With you to take care of him, I know he'll be just fine," Tore replied, though he couldn't object. He'd never been away from Dare for more than a day or two. This mission would be weeks, likely months long. If Dare hadn't been so very happy with Charisa as his mother, Tore might have tried to find a way to change the assignment, no matter how badly he was needed. "Not sure about me though," he teased, nuzzling her neck with his nose. "I'm useless without you."

"You did just fine without me," Charisa objected, squeaking as he hit her ticklish spot. "At least on some things," she amended, "Though it's nice to be needed."

"I'll always need you," Tore promised. "Both of you." That was why he would do his best on this mission; so he could come home sooner, now that he had so much worth coming back to.

**October 8****th****, 1971  
><strong>  
>"So you're sure you want to do this?"<p>

Ed didn't say anything as he watched his grandson nod at his father's question.

"They're asking for anyone with medical experience that can be spared," Reichart pointed out. "I'm not a doctor, but I have several years of experience helping out at the clinic. I can do all the basics they'll need a lot of."

Aldon nodded. It was a much more subdued family meal, this one at Ed and Winry's family table, than the one they'd had barely less than a week ago. "You don't know how long you'll be gone."

"They're not giving anyone orders as to how long they have to stay either," Reichart shrugged.

"It's all right," Deanna cut in with a soft smile. "We've talked about it."

"I'll be home," Reichart promised, squeezing Deanna's hand on top of the table. "I wouldn't miss this for anything, but I can help, and I should. It's not like I'm the only one going either."

"That's true," Winry replied, though she looked like there was more she was refraining from saying. Ed could guess what it was, given the number of conversations they had had over the years –and fights- when Ed had gone on missions because he felt the need to go, whether they had been required or not.

"We'll take care of him," Ed promised. As soon as Winry had voiced the fact she had received a call personally asking for auto-mail engineers, Ed knew he was going with her. Besides, he was still useful as an alchemist. Al was going, and Coran and Gale both had called and said they planned to come down. There were several people who had suffered auto-mail damage, or worse, injuries that were going to require auto-mail replacements. Will had wanted to go, but now that he was teaching at the University in Central, he couldn't get off.

"I know you will," Deanna smiled. "Or I wouldn't be letting him go."

"While we haven't done a large-scale disaster relief like this since the rebuilding of Ishbal for another culture, the recovery from Drachma here should give us an idea of how long it will take until Aerugo no longer needs our full assistance," Al elaborated, gesturing with his spoon, which still held a bite of raspberry cobbler. "I don't think it will take more than a few months."

"You make that sound like a short amount of time," Cassie commented, looking like she wished it wouldn't be so long.

Ed had the feeling Cassie would have liked to have gone and helped herself if the region could have spared her, and the family, but her devotion to her family wouldn't allow her to pick up and go the way others did. Ed admired her for it, frankly.

"It's shorter than the year-and-a-half we fought Drachma before we kicked them out," Ed offered in comparison. "And it will take Aerugo years to recover. However, they won't need thousands of Amestrians tramping all over the place for very long, and I'm sure they'd rather not have us there any longer than necessary." Temporary assistance had too much of a chance of becoming a long-term occupation, even if best intentions had begun it. History bore that out far too often.

"This is true."

"It will be fine," Winry smiled. "When I was on the phone earlier, they told me most of us would be assigned to the border itself, where the refugees have been flooding to, so we won't be going deep into the country, or really all that far from home. We'll have reasonably good amenities, and the ability to write and call home with relative ease compared to some of the others."

Reichart relaxed a little. "I'm glad to hear it." Clearly, that made him a little more comfortable with leaving, even if it was his own decision.

Ed's thoughts turned northward, and he wondered, briefly, what Ethan had decided to do. He knew that Ren was staying home because of Al's call home earlier that day, but he hadn't had a chance to talk to Ethan.

* * *

><p>"Not a chance!" Lia exclaimed over the back of six-month-old Aeddan, who had been –until that moment- starting to fall asleep on his mother's shoulder. He blinked, and began to whimper again.<p>

Ethan stood in the living room, both shocked and disappointed in the vehemence of his wife's reaction. He'd thought about it all the way home, ever since the call came to the clinic that morning. They weren't calling in lots of doctors, but they really wanted alchemical doctors down there if they could get them, and he understood why only too well. Ren had offered to stay behind. With Will working, she wanted to be there with the children. He'd explained it all to Lia… "What do you mean?" he asked, frowning. "I have to go."

Lia's glare could have shattered icicles. "No, you don't. There are plenty of doctors and nurses going to Aerugo's aid. Half the family is going. Let them take care of it."

"They specifically asked me to go," Ethan repeated his early point. Had she missed it? "Be reasonable."

"So now I'm unreasonable?" Lia asked. "You're telling me I should just _let _you go to Aerugo for months, where they're having minor break-outs of just about every unpleasant little disease that climate offers in the middle of their _rainy _season?"

So that was what this was about. "I'll be fine," Ethan offered her a reassuring smile, stifling his irritation. He moved around the coffee table toward her. "You know I'll take care of myself. I did all right against Drachma didn't I?"

"On Amestrian soil," Lia replied, not at all appeased. "I don't have to be a doctor to know that the forests of Aerugo have even more exotic and diverse infections than even Xing. It doesn't matter how careful you are, you could still catch something you can't handle. There aren't cures for half of what comes out of there!"

No, she wasn't going to be reasonable. "That's why I have to go, Lia! Only alchemy can save some of these people, and it may be the key to finding cures for some of those diseases while I'm there; or at least maybe a vaccine or two. Besides, I'm only being assigned to the border. I'm not likely to see anything worse than a few infected wounds and wet-weather colds." That was most of what they were reporting already anyway.

Lia had stopped rocking Aeddan, and now stood stock still. "No, Ethan. I don't want you to go!"

"I told you, I have to do this," Ethan replied, biting back the growl that threatened to come out of his throat. What was this? Lia had never argued with him about anything this important before. "I'm needed."

"You're needed here too," Lia ran right over his argument. "You still have plenty of patients here, and your research on auto-mail improvements, and us! It's the middle of the school year and _now_ you want to go gallivanting off and leave me to take care of all three children?"

"You can always ask Gracia for help," Ethan objected. "Or Ren. She's staying to hold down the practice."

"You know it's not that easy," Lia's voice rose in timbre, just a bit. Ethan didn't think he'd ever seen her this angry before… ever. "Not with work, and grading, and then Lily's got her preschool art playgroup after school, and Eamon's in the middle of soccer. Aeddan's not even fully weaned!"

"Lia I know all this, but-"

"But _what_?" She was near shouting now. "You're the only man on the planet that can save Aerugo now?"

In that moment, Ethan did something he had thought he would never have to do. His resolve steeled. "I'm going, Lia, and that's final."

She stared at him, shocked, for several long moments before her expression hardened. "Fine. Excuse me." With that she turned and headed for the stairs with Aeddan in her arms.

Ethan sighed. He'd apologize later, when she'd cooled off a little. She would probably be fine by the time Aeddan was in bed. Eamon and Lily were already tucked in up in their beds for the night. Still feeling irritated, he headed for the shower. He needed to cool off too. They so rarely argued about anything, it wasn't something he dealt with well.

A long, hot shower did a lot to improve his mood. Or at least, to calm him down. He felt bad, leaving Lia with so much to do, but his conscience wouldn't let him stay home and sit by when so many people desperately needed medical help. Civilians who were injured, ill, dying… how could he have ever said no?

He got out of the shower, toweled off, and combed out his hair before pulling it back for the night. Then he wrapped the towel around his waist and stepped out into the hall. He turned the bedroom door knob.

It didn't open.

Well, dang it. "Lia?" he knocked. "The door's locked."

There was a moment of silence. "Yes, it is."

She was… really going to leave him standing out here in a towel? Then the realization of what it really meant hit him… he'd been locked out of his own bedroom. "Lia, this isn't funny," he replied, letting out the growl he had stifled earlier.

"No, it isn't."

"You want me to catch cold?"

"The laundry's clean."

"Lia, let me in!"

"Good night, Ethan."

He could transmute the door, and let himself in, but Ethan had the presence of mind to realize that all that would accomplish would be a continuation of this evening's fight. Ethan didn't like it. They'd never gone to bed angry at each other. The worst emotional angst they'd had was due to his own social fumbling when they'd first started going out. He supposed as long as they had been together, it was long overdue. That didn't make it better.

But clearly Lia wasn't in the frame of mind to want to deal with this right now. Ethan didn't want to press too hard. All he would do was make them both more upset. "Good night, love," he replied through the door, then turned and went back downstairs to the laundry room, where he pulled shorts and a t-shirt out of the pile of recently folded clothes, grabbed a blanket, and headed for the couch.

Brigitte was curled up at one end of the couch. The little white dog perked up her foxy ears when he sat down.

"Come on, girl, get down," Ethan nudged her.

Brigitte wagged her tail, but didn't move.

"I said down," Ethan shoved her off the couch.

Brigitte shook herself as she got back up off the floor, looked at him indignantly, and then jumped right back up on top of his feet as he tried to lie down.

Ethan gave up. "Fine. Just keep my feet warm."

It was going to be a long night.

**October 9****th****, 1971**

The tension in the air was thicker than the fog that hung throughout the village and the surrounding rainforest. The constant patter of rain dripped from the foliage above, showering the roofs of the small village of Tolos with moisture that was only mildly bearable. October in Aerugo was still a warm, muggy affair.

The Tolos Inn was really more of a two-story house with a cantina that took up the entire main floor and –according to the signs- sold primarily working-man meal fare, water you could trust, two flavors of soda –cola and orange- and about three local brews. Upstairs had four small rooms, one of which was occupied by Buaelo, the middle aged man who owned the place himself.

At present, the Mustangs, and Nikolaos and his uncle, occupied all three of the tiny rooms. The Ioannatos' shared one room. Maes and Elena slept in another with Roy on the smaller bed, and the two girls and Riza –and the dogs- were in the third. Maes had offered a bit of extra money for the allowance of the dogs; grateful he'd had the presence of mind to have his wallet on him on the beach, and plenty of cash.

Despite, or perhaps because of, the earthquake damage done to the small town, the Ioannatos' and Mustangs had been very welcome. In the two days they had been there so far, they had pitched in to help the town with repairs. Roy, with his prodigious use of alchemical ability, had become popular almost immediately because –like Edward Elric- he could re-erect buildings good as new from splinters. Most of the damage wasn't that extensive.

In exchange for work, and money where needed though the work was more useful, Maes had managed to outfit his entire family with two or three sets of clothing apiece more suited to their rainforest trek. All the dresses were gone, given over to the village rag-pile for whatever they might want the fabric for, and replaced with pants, shirts, socks and boots, and fresh undergarments.

Nikolaos and Engelo had been the ones to work on negotiations for hiking supplies. Between them all, there were now five backpacks, a blanket a piece, a couple of tarps to make tents out of to keep them dry at night, and the very rudimentary necessities for camp cooking and hiking; like a pan and a couple of knives that looked like they could hack through wilderness as well as meat. That was the idea.

They couldn't just stay in Tolos. For one thing, no one had a car they could buy off anyone –not that Maes carried that kind of cash, For another, other than the limited short-wave radio capabilities, there was only one phone out of town, and the line was dead thanks to the earthquake. They had to keep going until they could at least get contact with someone outside the country who could get word to Amestris and they could be extracted or find a way home.

Maes entered the Inn and pushed back the hoot of the poncho that was keeping the rain off him. In the little cantina common room, Riza, Rochelle, and Théa were sitting at the table closest to the fireplace, eating a thick, chunky stew that steamed welcomingly. His mother looked perfectly comfortable in their utilitarian new clothes, though Maes thought his daughters looked subdued. Not that he could blame them, he thought with a twinge of guilt. They'd never had to deal with physical hardship in their lives.

The colorful dyes used on the clothing seemed at odds with the dourness of the situation.

"Daddy," Rochelle smiled at him as he entered, though covered her mouth and coughed. Maes felt a twinge at his youngest daughter's cold. This weather…damn it.

"Hey, sweetie." Maes joined them, kissing Rochelle on the top of the head. "How's lunch?"

"Yummy," the thirteen-year-old girl replied.

"It's okay," Théa replied, spooning it half-heartedly.

His mother smiled. "It's got more than adequate nutritional value."

Maes couldn't help chuckling. "Now there's a ringing endorsement. We'll need it though. Where's Elena?"

"Upstairs taking a nap," said Théa. "She said she wasn't feeling well."

That wasn't good. They were leaving in the morning, but trekking through the forest sick wasn't a good idea. It was bad enough Rochelle had a cold coming on. "Order me a bowl, and I'll be down in a minute," he told his mother before going upstairs.

Elena was in their cramped little room, curled up on the bed they currently shared that was just big enough for two people. No luxury-sixed bedding here.

"Elena, sweetheart?" Maes sat down gently on the edge of the bed.

Her eyes fluttered open and she smiled. "Maes. You're back."

"Yeah. Everything's taken care of," he replied, bending down to kiss her cheek. "Are you all right?"

"I'll be all right," she assured. "I think I'm getting whatever cold Rochelle has. I have a bit of a headache and I'm tired, but that's all. Nothing sleep won't fix."

That was a relief. Maes rested his hand on her soft cheek and smiled. :Rest, my love,: he whispered in Aerugean. :You are my heart, and that of this family.:

Elena chuckled as she closed her eyes. :Your poetics move me.:

:I try.: Maes stood, leaving her to rest. She would need it. He would be hustling everyone into bed early tonight. There was supposed to be another town only a day's hike if they made good time. They were starting taking the road. The ground-cover was so dense here that it would only slow them down.

Downstairs, Roy and the two Cretans had joined the girls and stew was waiting for Maes. Having spent the morning doing hard manual labor, his stomach was quite happy to accept as much stew as Maes wanted to fill it with. It took two to satisfy him, though he felt better when Roy and Nikolaos each demolished four with the typical high-energy appetites of teenage boys who had been working hard.

"Could you be any more barbaric?" Théa asked Roy with a look of mild disgust.

Roy smirked back. "We're out in the middle of nowhere and after working my ass off all morning you want me to worry about my manners. They're no worse than his," he nodded towards Nikolaos and grinned.

Théa blushed slightly, and looked abruptly down at her food. "You don't want to give yourselves indigestion," she replied as if that had been all she meant all along.

"On this stuff?" Roy pointed at his bowl with his spoon. The plain root-vegetable and meat stew was pretty plain stuff, but it was filling. "Not likely."

"Better to fill up now," Riza commented matter-of-factly. "There's plenty more to do around town this afternoon to help before we leave, and tomorrow will be a very strenuous hike."

"Right," Roy grinned. "So I think I'll help myself to another bowl. Hey, Nik, you want one?"

The two boys were obviously teasing Théa, because Nikolaos winked at her even as he nodded at Roy. "Absolutely."


	3. Chapter 3

**October 15****th****, 1971**

"And here I thought we were done with tent cities," Edward sighed as he rested one arm around Winry's shoulders and looked down the line after line of tents –mostly standard military issue- put up on the Aerugean side of the border to host the thousands of refugees that had been halted at the border, by the one Amestrian military unit stationed there to keep the peace.

There were rows of tents on the Amestrian side of the border as well; temporary housing for everyone who had come to help. Ed was grateful that the weather this far south was warm in October, and that he and Winry had rated an officer's sized tent to themselves.

"You've said that every morning since we got here," Winry teased him.

"That's only three days," Ed pointed out as they started walking down the line towards the border. The hospital tents were set up on the Aerugean side of the border, and that was where the emergency auto-mail workshop had been set up as well. "I still find it sort of ironic, that's all."

"Well bring your irony along and let's get to work."

By the time they reached the medical tent, the sun was daring to peak through the thick clouds above, and it looked light it might actually not rain all day. That was the downside to coming down here in the rainy season… everything was wet, and Ed's stumps, even modified with insulation as they were now, ached from the weather.

Ed had already caved on the second day, and taken one of the painkillers Ethan had developed that he could actually have. A storm front had been moving through quickly, and that had been more than a little unpleasant.

When they arrived at the hospital complex –a huge canvas structure made up of multiple large tents- Coran and Gale were both already in the auto-mail workshop, hard at work on the racks of auto-mail limbs that needed servicing, and the whole place smelled like coffee and machine oil.

"Morning, Granny," Coran grinned over the wiry insides of an arm that had been taken almost entirely apart. "Grandpa."

"Good morning," Winry pulled out her gloves and started putting them on. "So, what's first this morning?"

"A never-ending pile of repairs," Gale chuckled. She was working on some very fine detail work on the fingers of a right hand. "And Doctor Eckert said he's got two patients who are going to need new parts by the end of the week for surgeries; one right hand and one right foot."

"I'll start on the hand," Winry nodded. "Where are the specs?"

"Right here," Coran paused and handed them over.

"Guess I'll see you later than," Ed chuckled. He wasn't needed in here.

"Thanks for walking me to work," Winry smiled, and kissed him briefly. "Stay out of trouble, all right?"

"Just for that, I'm going to have to go find some now, you realize that right?"

"Of course."

Ed grinned as he left. His first stop of the morning would be to check in with Ethan and the other doctors to see what work was being done today that might need his help in boosting Ethan's alchemy reserves. It was about all he could do, given his own abilities in medical alchemy were still limited to mostly cuts and bruises unless the situation was dire.

He found the little office the doctors shared and waited, knowing one would show up eventually and be able to give him a rough schedule minus any emergencies. There was an interesting mix of Amestrian and Aerugean doctors, medics, and nurses working here, though Ed knew far more of them were already down in or headed towards Havah and Bueáire and the areas directly hit.

Ed didn't have to wait long. Within five minutes Ethan entered, mid-yawn, and blinked before registering that Ed was there. "Hey, Dad. Just a second and I'll check the schedule." With that, he turned to the coffee pot, poured himself a cup, and then went over to the wall and looked at a written chart. "Looks like we're not doing any surgeries until this afternoon, unless something critical comes in."

"You're all making me feel like I've got nothing to do," Ed chuckled. "You all right? You've only been here two days and you look tired."

"It's busy," Ethan shrugged. "I haven't worked hours this long in a while. The clinic patients are all happy to show up on schedule, even half the births."

That was true. Ethan had been fortunate enough not to have to work residency since coming back. "And the beds here aren't exactly luxury," Ed had to admit. Given they were military cots, it was almost a joke to call them beds, though since it wasn't a campaign, and out of comfort, Ed had brought a thin mattress and laid it across two cots, so he and Winry could sleep on the same bed in comfort and added warmth.

"That too." Ethan shrugged. "I'm fine. How about you? Is the weather causing problems?"

His son was always the doctor first. "A few aches. I took something for it already this morning. Well, I'll be back after lunch then," Ed waved before heading back out. He didn't want to delay anyone's treatment.

So that, theoretically, left Ed at entirely loose ends, but he was too enterprising to waste that much time. Like he had done the day before, and the first evening as well, Ed headed out into the sea of tents and worried faces and did what any good alchemist would; he helped. The day before he had repaired no less than six cars, three pull-carts, twelve stuffed animals for small children, a coat, and three leaky tent roofs of tents some families had been smart enough to bring with them when fleeing.

Today would be more of the same. After as much as he had experienced, Ed knew that the little things mattered as much as the big ones. Small comforts could heal the heart as much as the big ones. He wasn't in uniform, and he had forgone the red coat for something less flashy and more utilitarian, so he wasn't immediately recognized. When the grateful families asked who he was, he just introduced himself as Edward. Let them make the connection on their own, if they ever did. He'd even taken to drawing circles out the old fashioned way to avoid drawing too much attention. They might not be as grateful if they knew it was the Fullmetal Alchemist in their midst.

It took Ed nearly thirty minutes to walk straight to where he had left off the day before, weaving through the tents, but moving much faster now that he wasn't stopping every tent or three to fix something.

Unsurprisingly, there were people waiting. A small handful of people of varying ages with a collection of items; an old man in a dented wheel-chair with his thin-faced tired looking wife, a woman with a broken vase, and four children with torn or broken favorite toys that they had clutched for miles as they fled their homes. Others looked on with interest. A couple of people he recognized from the day before smiled and one child waved.

Ed smiled and waved back.

:Good morning, alchemist,: the man in the wheel chair spoke first. :I hope you don't think us forward, but could you please do something to fix this?: He pointed to the right wheel, which looked like it was barely usable in its current state.

:Not too forward at all,: Ed assured him, bending down to take a quick look at it. :After all, an alchemist's duty is to help people.: He pulled a piece of chalk out of his pocket, sketched a quick circle on the rim of the wheel, and with a quick tap, it was good as new.

:Thank you,: the man's wife beamed down at him. :It's been like that for days. We weren't sure we would be able to get out until someone gave us a ride in the back of their truck.:

Ed straightened up, hearing his own back crack repeatedly, reminding him that he wasn't any younger than the man in the chair; just fortunate enough to not be falling apart just yet. :It's my pleasure to do what I can. Now,: he turned a grin on the pile of children. :Who's next?:

* * *

><p>Ethan set and bandaged the broken arm in front of him almost on rote, then used a careful application of alchemy to mend the tricky break in the narrow bone and put two small splinters back in place. :There now,: he smiled at the twelve-year old boy who was his patient and his lurking, anxious parents. :It's well set and will heal just fine in a couple of weeks.:<p>

:Thank you, Doctor,: the father replied, as the mother looked relieved.

The boy gingerly moved his splinted, bandaged arm, then smiled at Ethan. :Thank you,: he said as his parents led him back out of the room.

That was the last one on Ethan's list before he was allowed to go on break. With a feeling of relief, he took off his gloves and headed for the little office that doubled as break room. The never-emptying coffee pot –or so it seemed- was freshly remade, and Ethan poured himself another cup of hot caffeine to fight against the wetness in the air and the exhaustion alchemical healing and dealing with the injured and ill could bring with it no matter how upbeat a man might be, or how much he relished his work.

Ethan was having trouble finding that relish today. Or, he had to admit, at all in the first couple of days he had been here. It felt good to be helping people who desperately needed him, but the awkward situation he had left back home didn't want to leave his mind. After his night on the couch, Lia had let him back in the bedroom, but when he tried to apologize she hadn't wanted to discuss his leaving. The decision was made, she said, so there was nothing more to talk about.

But it didn't feel that way. The children, at least, had been proud of him and thought he was going on some grand adventure, like his trip to Xing last year. Ethan had done little to disabuse them of that notion. After all, he was in little danger himself, and they thought his helping other people was great. Aeddan just giggled and for the baby life went on as normal. Lia had been normal around the kids, if less visibly affectionate towards him, but in private things had still been a bit chilly. Never one to be mysterious, Lia made her displeasure known, though there was no out and out fighting.

If she just wanted him to feel guilty, she needn't have worried; Ethan felt more than guilty enough leaving her to take care of all three kids on top of work and life, but this was just that important. He had expected her to understand that though. She always had before.

He was still mid-miserable-musing and on his second cup of coffee when the door flap flew open and Yalao Herndes' face appeared looking harried. :Elric! I need you now. We have a serious case.:

Ethan left his coffee sitting and was on his feet in a moment. :What's the emergency?: he asked as Herndes led him between several beds and through four walled-off tent rooms before they cut outside and into the quarantine tent. That was not a good sign.

Ethan understood the problem the moment they arrived. A face mask was stuffed in his hands and he put it over his mouth as he looked at the patients. There were four people lying together in one room, one old man, two middle-aged fellows, and a boy who couldn't have been more than six. :What do they have?: he asked, noting the fact that they all looked fevered, but none were sweating. Very bad. One of them was muttering to himself, but it was mangled backwoods Aerugean, and Ethan couldn't catch most of it. Either way it sounded like gibberish.

:Basokaria,: Herndes' expression was tight and pained.

Ethan felt his stomach drop. He had heard of the rare disease in college, but only academically. It had a sixty-to-seventy percent fatality rate, and was commonly recognizable by raging fevers, coughing, and delirium. It was also highly contagious. :Are these all the cases?: he asked, though he already doubted it. :How long have they been with the other refugees?:

:They just came in this morning,: Herndes replied. :But I doubt that's all the cases we'll see. They're coming out of the forests now, and with the rainy season and exhaustion, we can expect further cases. I just hope we can arrest the outbreak.:

:Is there any treatment?: Ethan hadn't heard of any in school, but that had been years ago now.

:No cure, no vaccine,: Herndes shook his head. :I want you to see what you can do with alchemy. We've never tried that.:

_Of course._ Ethan nodded and stepped forward, putting on a pair of pre-circled gloves, and laying his hands on the chest of the little boy, who was unconscious. He looked like Eamon, but much darker in complexion. Ethan's heart lurched. He focused instead on generating alchemical energy and letting it flow through the boy, looking for the infection.

What he found was more than unpleasant. It was a sick, sort of oily feeling, finding the virus that had wasted no time in spreading and multiplying in the blood stream. Ethan tried killing it with alchemy, but it refused to burn out, and what few viral cells died, others multiplied quickly to replace them. Still, if he could hit them hard enough…. But he didn't have the energy to blast out a case. He pulled out, shaking his head, and realized his body was shaking slightly from the exertion.

Ethan stepped away from the boy and wiped his face on a towel as he considered his words. :I can't heal that,: he replied regretfully. :I might be able to arrest it for a while, with enough energy, but it would take a sustained and powerful treatment to kill it all, more than one alchemist or even two could manage.:

Herndes' expression fell, but he nodded as if he had expected the worst. :At least you tried.:

:That doesn't mean we shouldn't try it,: Ethan smiled at him encouragingly. :By studying it with alchemy, perhaps I can think of something else to try that hasn't been done before. There has to be something that can kill it.: Maybe a more powerful alchemical compound than the medicines they had probably already tried.

:I hope so,: Herndes sighed. :The last outbreak of basokaria was fairly localized, and it still took out five thousand people.:

:How many people lived in the area?:

:Eight thousand.:

**October 17****th****, 1971**

"If the depression doesn't kill us, the stench will," Sara sighed as she dropped down on a piece of rubble, already feeling exhausted just looking at the start they had made on their first day in Havah…and how little it seemed to be so far. The town was a royal mess. What the earthquake hadn't shaken down, or the lava poured right over on the south-eastern side, was either abandoned or stuffed twice-tight with the remaining people who had not fled the city.

The sewage lines were broken, with leaks everywhere, adding to the stench of sulfur and rock, debris and death. Sara preferred not to think how much of that rotten scent from the lack of electricity for refrigeration was actually rotting bodies instead of vegetables.

Cal nodded as he dropped down beside her. "And to think, it's only been a day." Their first day of work had involved clearing out space for themselves to bivouac their own tents for the time being, and then using alchemy to restore sound foundations for critical local buildings; the nearest hospital primarily. There had also been a preliminary meeting with the remaining city councilmen and utility managers to get a feel for how much work would be involved in restoring plumbing and electricity to the parts of the city that were currently livable, and where to set up the emergency area for the handling of emergency provisions like food and blankets. Another portion of Sara's alchemists she had sent out with the rescue teams to look for living injured, as well as recovering bodies of the dead.

Where Cal just looked resigned, Tore and Jean both looked slightly ill; Tore in particular. "It's worse than a war zone," Tore commented with a sad shake of his head. "There's no way to bomb a city this badly. Nature sure did a number on it though."

"That's why it's a natural disaster," Jean Stevens sighed.

They had seen signs of the destruction on the train down, but it had been a little more remote seen from a passing train. They were just lucky the tracks were intact this far down. Sara had heard that they were more broken up down by Bueáire, and Kane's group would have to repair them before they reached the capitol.

"One more go at putting this school back up and running and then we'll pack it in for the night," Sara promised. It had been chosen as the location for the Amestrian Relief Center, and it was up to them to make it work.  
>Tore groaned, but he moved. "I've almost got the electricity running, now that we got that generator working down the street."<p>

Cal grimaced and moved as well. "I think if I can just find where-ever there's a break in the pipe, we'll have running water too. It just feels like there's still a crack siphoning a lot of the water off and wasting it."

"I'll leave you two to your specialties," Sara replied, glad she had picked them. Those two sets of abilities were already proving far more useful than she had anticipated. "I've got the building sound except for that north-eastern corner."

"What should I do?" Jean asked, leaning on the end of the shovel he had been using to move debris all afternoon.

Sara smiled. He wasn't an alchemist, but Jean hadn't complained once about the amount of effort he had to put out to fairly little effect in the grand scheme of the entire destroyed city. "Bring that shovel. When I get the rest of the building up to code, we're going to need to dig out the west loading doors."

Jean twirled the handle of the shovel in his hand and nodded. "Yes, Ma'am. Let's show that rubble who's boss."

Sara chuckled as she followed him off, with one parting shot at Cal and Tore. "You two could stand to learn a little more optimism."

Cal laughed. "You mean learn to lie about how much fun we're not having?"

"That sounds like a bad date," Tore added.

Sara rolled her eyes. "Well you know, taking anyone to a place like this would definitely qualify as a _bad_ date."

**October 18****th****, 1971**

Alphonse didn't have to listen to the radio to know Amestris' primary headline for the day. Basokaria was spreading. Within the last three days the number of cases in the camp had grown twenty-fold, and there were already scattered reports of it appearing up in South City, carried there by workers on the military trains, who had contracted it during their trip down to bring supplies and men. Out of the forty ill Aerugeans, thirteen had already died. Two Amestrians working the infirmary had already taken ill themselves now.

It was bad. So when he did listen to the radio, he wasn't surprised to hear that Central HQ and the Assembly had already put a Quarantine on the entire area, from South City down. There was to be no travel out of the region. All supplies and needs would be coming out of the Southern area for the foreseeable future. It was just too risky given how quickly the disease was spreading.

"I don't like it," Ed commented, frowning as they sat outside his tent on the Amestrian side of the border that evening.

"Well no one does," Al almost laughed at the obviousness of his brother's statement, except that he found nothing funny in the situation either. "It feels sort of like being trapped in an experiment."

"We can't leave you mean," Ed nodded. "Well, everyone who's here will just have to do their best to stay healthy, and keep as many people from getting sick as possible."

Al was glad that the auto-mail workshop was in a different tent in the complex from the quarantine area…and the quarantine tent had been moved out even further, though the disease was commonly accepted as a contact-contracted disease. It meant it would keep people from accidentally contracting it and passing it on. Only a small number of the doctors were allowed over there now, and they scrubbed down every night, and camped in that area. "Are you worried, Ed?"

"Yeah, some," Ed admitted. "Not so much about us, but about all those people, and if there are still cases springing up among the refugees, we don't know how far it will spread, or how many people will die before it runs itself out. It's a plague."

And Ethan was working right in the middle of it. Reichart, fortunately, had been left nursing in the regular medical ward. It didn't render him completely immune, but it definitely lowered any chances of contagion.

Yes, it was a plague all right. Al could only hope that it was quickly contained here, and up in South City. If it kept spreading, Amestris could be in for its own minor disaster.

**October 20****th****, 1971**

"This looks like a good place to camp for the night," Roy's father said as they stood in a large clearing.

Roy set down his pack gratefully and looked around. It wasn't bad, plenty of clear area away from the brush, but a stream about twenty yards off for fresh water. Even as a clearing, the highest branches above made for light shelter from the drizzle. Two medium sized saplings standing in the middle would be perfect for erecting their tarp-and-rope tent for everyone to huddle under. For their third night having to actually camp it out in the forest, it wasn't half bad.

"It looks excellent," Engelo agreed, and with a nod from Grandma Riza that was that.

Everyone started setting down packs and getting camp set up. Roy helped his father pitch their tarp lean-to, and then gathered the driest wood he could find from the underbrush to make a cook fire, while Nikolaos fetched water in the one pot they had picked up in one of the last tiny villages they had spent the night in, and Engelo scouted the area. Grandma Riza and his father took the dogs, and two guns, and went hunting for small game. It was, Roy thought, almost like survival camping.

By the time Roy returned with the firewood, his mother and Théa had gotten everyone's belongings into the tent and set up the sleep rolls. The only one not working was Rochelle, who sat on the ground, leaning listlessly against one of the trees, coughing.

His good mood vanished. His little sister's cold hadn't gotten better, though it had seemed all right the first several days. Now though, the cough sounded much worse. "Hey there, Elle," he crouched down beside her. "How are you doing?"

"I'm okay," she replied unconvincingly.

Roy put his fingers to her forehead, and almost yanked them away again. "No, you're not. Hey, Mom! Come here a minute."

His mother crawled out of the tent. "What's wrong?"

"Rochelle's got a fever."

Elena pressed her lips lightly to her daughter's forehead and scowled. "That's not good. Come and lie down. You need to rest. Roy, get your sister a glass of water. Make sure you've purified it first."

"We've already got some boiled," Roy assured her, going out to the pot where the water was cooling beside the fire. He scooped some into a small camp cup, and then used a bit of alchemy to cool it off. In a moment of insight, he pulled out his bandana, soaked it, and then hit it with alchemy enough to chill it to icy. When he slipped inside the cramped space of the tent, his mother already had Rochelle tucked into bed in the middle of the line and was cradling her head on her lap for a pillow. "Here you go," he offered his mother the water and the bandana.

"You're brilliant," Elena smiled at him as she took both, lying the cloth across Rochelle's flushed forehead. "There you are, little one. Now, sip this," she held the glass to Rochelle's lips while the thirteen-year-old sipped listlessly, but cooperatively. It didn't take long for her to drain the entire glass.

When his father and grandmother returned, Roy was glad to see they had brought back a decent kill; one of the small rainforest deer and a couple of odd, fat rodents. At least something around here was eating better than the people.  
>Dinner was a boiled stew of meat, fresh-picked local edible plant-life and herbs, and a scoop of brown rice out of the supply they had bought recently; a hearty meal to sleep on and digest so they would sleep well and have energy for the hike tomorrow. It was several days to the next village now; they were out so far into the wilds.<p>

That was, if they kept on. If Rochelle's fever didn't break, Roy didn't know how long they might have to stay in this one campsite. He hoped not long. The forest here seemed wilder than when they first entered it. The first thing he noticed as it got dark was the growing amount of tiny wild creature noises that he didn't recognize.

"Too bad we don't have any marshmallows," his father joked as they polished off the last lick of everything in the pot. Even Rochelle had managed to get down a bowl. Everyone else had managed two or three.

"When we get home, we should make s'mores," Roy agreed as a yawn cracked his jaw.

"First," Riza said, "Let's get home. I'm going to get some sleep. Engelo, you have first watch?"

Nikolaos' uncle nodded. "I've got it."

"Watch?" Théa asked, looking up. "What for?"

"Predators," Riza replied calmly. "It's just a standard precaution in areas like this."

"Don't worry," Maes smiled reassuringly. "You're perfectly safe."

"That's true," Roy grinned. "Grandma can shoot anything, and Nik and Engelo know everything about this kind of camping. Nothing's going to bother us."

But as he curled up in his own sleeping bag a bit later, Roy forced himself to stop listening to the odd bug and bird noises outside. For the first time in years, he missed his old stuffed puppy dog that was still at home on a shelf. Silly that, he thought as he drifted off to sleep. He'd have been much more comfortable with Trisha to snuggle with…

* * *

><p>Roy's eyes popped open suddenly as he sat bolt upright, sweating, heart pounding. Damned nightmare. As he peered around in the darkness, telling himself it was all right, he realized two things; the first, that he could no longer hear any birds.. or bugs, at all. The second, that his eyes weren't the only eyes open in the tent.<p>

His Grandmother looked at him and motioned him to remain silent.

What was going on here?

The deep, guttural snarl in the forest made his blood run cold.

"Grandma what-"

"Hush." His grandmother eased silently out of her sleep roll, pulling her pistol out from under her pillow as she pointed it out the end of the tent.

Now his father's eyes were open, and everyone else. Nikolaos, sleeping at the other open end, was up, holding the old rifle Maes had used for hunting earlier. His eyes were wide, glinting in the remaining low yellow light coming from the fire. He was whispering something, and Roy took several seconds to catch it given his lack of grasp of Cretan; the other guy was alternately praying and cursing with lightning speed.

"What was that?" Elena finally whispered.

Nikolaos swallowed. "Jaguar."

_Ohhhhh shit._ Wait, why weren't the dogs barking? Roy looked back at his grandmother. The dogs, who had been curled around her feet, were waiting, alert but silent, and they looked both eager and afraid. Their tails were down, but their ears forward.

Roy leaned around the edge of the tent with Nikolaos. "Where's your uncle?" he asked hoarsely.

Nikolaos didn't respond, and Roy felt his stomach sink. If Engelo was still out there, he just hoped the man had found a good place to hide. Not that a tree would do him any good would it? Jaguars could climb.

"What do we do?" Elena asked, the fear clear in her voice.

"Stay put until morning," Riza replied. "If it's killed, than it will eat, and leave us alone."

Roy knew he wasn't going to get any more sleep tonight. He stared out into the darkness, half-imagining eyes in the dark. If it had killed… he noticed she didn't say who or what it had killed.

The animals continued to make no sound.


	4. Chapter 4

**October 21****st****, 1971**

Maes didn't sleep the rest of the night. He had picked up his mother's third gun, and kept watch with her and Nikolaos and Roy. Théa, despite insistence otherwise, fell back asleep from sheer exhaustion, and Maes had been glad that Elena managed to doze. Rochelle could hardly stay awake.

Dawn's first light was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, as everything outside the tent turned to soft grey, then green again instead of pitch black. The sounds of morning birds heralded that all had to be well in the area now. So they ventured out of the tent, to see if they could find Engelo, calling out every so often to see if he responded.

"Over here," a strangled voice came from Maes' right as he edge his way carefully around the clearing behind the tent. It was Nikolaos.

Maes followed the track through the brush to where Nikolaos stood, about fifty yards off, down by the stream. Riza was there too, gun at the ready, though there was no sign that the predator was still nearby. He had heard about jaguar kills, but the sight was more gruesome than even he had considered. Jaguars crushed the skull in their jaws, and apparently this one didn't mind the taste of human flesh. Large tracks in the mud by the stream only confirmed that they were dealing with a jaguar; a big one.

"A man-eater," Nikolaos choked out, his face having gone ashen and a little green.

"What, did you find him? I-" Théa burst upon the scene and then stopped dead, and squeaked. "Oh my god! That's…" Her eyes went wide and backed off quickly.

"Go back to camp," Maes told his daughter firmly. "Go with Grandma. We'll take care of this. Send Roy."

With the three of them, they managed a quick, deep burial, and then washed any trace of the blood from themselves. Then they returned to the camp.

"I'm sorry about your uncle," Roy said softly to Nikolaos.

Nikolaos nodded, then took a deep breath. "We can't stay here," he said. "If there's a man-eater in the area, he'll come back. The best thing we can do is keep moving, stay together, and get back to civilization as quickly as possible."

"Should we turn around?" Théa asked fearfully.

Nikolaos shook his head. "We're closer to our destination than when we started, and they didn't have any kind of doctor back there. Rochelle needs a doctor, and we have an identifiable threat on our trail."

"How identifiable?" Maes asked.

"One of the prints had a mal-formed toe," Nikolaos replied. "Front right paw, the outermost toe is missing its claw. It may have been ripped out in a fight, or it might have been born that way, but at least if we find other prints we can identify him."

"If we find other prints doesn't that mean there are more jaguars?" Théa gasped, breathing heavily.

Elena rubbed their daughter's back soothingly, though it seemed to be having little effect.

"Not all jaguars are man eaters, though many will kill, yes," Nikolaos sighed. "They kill for pleasure, as well as food. That's why we need to keep moving."

Camp was packed in record time, and they set out following the stream towards their destination since, for the moment, it went the same direction.

Maes laid a hand on Nikolaos' shoulder as he led the way. "I am sorry," he said softly. "Your uncle was a good man."

Nikolaos offered him a cheerless-smile. "My uncle should never have been taken. He was very wise in these trees. The Jaguar must have known that he was the treat… I know what my aunt will say when we get back. She will say… "I told him he needed to go on a diet.'"

* * *

><p>Edward stifled a yawn as he sat in the mess tent, drinking coffee and eating a steaming bowl of oatmeal heaped with brown sugar and dried fruit. One thing about this mission, for the Amestrians helping out at least on the border, the food was far better than his last military campaign; or any military campaign for that matter.<p>

"You'd think you were working hard or something," Winry chuckled as she watched him.

Ed shrugged. It was only his second bowl. "You'd be surprised how much alchemy I've been doing. I don't think there's a broken, leaking, torn, or even battered item left the main part of the refugee camp. Yesterday I got asked to help repair two of the mobile medical unit vehicles." He had now been forbidden to help Ethan with his work, since Ethan had been assigned directly to the quarantined unit as the only alchemical doctor currently in the area. _They really need to get more trained,_ he thought, not for the first time.

"And you wish you were more help with people," Winry commented softly, looking across the table.

"Yeah, I do." Ed sighed and took another bite. He had been forbidden from going anywhere near the quarantine area because 'senior citizens are more susceptible.' _Senior citizen?_

"We all do," Al agreed as he joined them. He had been doing much the same as Ed, only heading out in a separate direction, so they could cover more of the camp. "So where are the kids this morning?"

"Coran and Gale left before you got here," Winry replied with a chuckle. "They'd already been up and were eager to get to work."

"I miss that energy," Al chuckled as he dug into his oatmeal.

"Speaking of energy," Ed paused, mid-bite. "Where's Art?"

Winry stopped. "I'm not sure. I haven't seen him this morning."

"Maybe he was up earlier than all of us?" Al suggested.

That made sense. Reichart was used to being up early. If he wasn't at the clinic in Resembool he was usually helping out with Deanna's folks cows, and they got brought in and milked at first light; or still in the dark during the winter.

Except that when Ed arrived at the Infirmary for his usual check to see if there was anything that needed fixing, the first question he got from one of the nurses was, "Where's Reichart?"

"He's not here?"

She shook her head. "I haven't seen him yet this morning."

"I'll go find him," Ed promised, and headed back across the border towards his nephew's tent, that he shared with another guy who so far had been on the night shifts. Maybe Reichart had actually slept in?

That certainly appeared to be the case when Ed found him still cocooned in his sleeping bag. "Hey, Art, wake up," he shoved his nephew's shoulder and shook him a couple of times.

Reichart groaned, and rolled over. "What… time is it?" He asked, coughing. He didn't look great either.

Ed sighed. "It's after nine. Are you feeling all right?" With half a dozen illnesses among the refugees, he could only hope this one wasn't basokaria.

Reichart sat up, slowly, face clearly flushed. "Yyyeeeee… nope." He shook his head very slightly and coughed again.

Ed grimaced. "If I help, can you walk to the infirmary? If not, I'll go fetch a doctor here."

"I'm not… that bad," Reichart shook his head. "At least not yet."

With Ed's help, Reichart got up and pulled on pants –he was already in a shirt- and shoes, and they made the way slowly over to the medical tents. "Where should I take you?" Ed asked as they got closer, and it occurred to him that if it was basokaria, he should take his grandson to the quarantine ward instead of the regular area.

"Backside of the regular tent," Reichart told him. "There's a small tent set up for diagnosis. They disinfect it every patient."

Well that was smart. Ed did as Reichart suggested, and waited anxiously while one of the doctors looked Reichart over.

:It's not the jungle fever,: the doctor commented with relief in Aerugean. :But it is a nasty virus. We will put him to bed and start treatment at once.:

:Thank you,: Ed replied. He couldn't say he was happy about his grandson being hospitalized, but the death rate from the other diseases they had dealt with was far lower, and Reichart had otherwise been in perfectly good health. He watched as another nurse helped Reichart out of the little tent.

:He's not out of the woods yet, to pardon the phrase,: the doctor corrected.

:He'll make it,: Ed replied with conviction.

:How can you be so sure?" the other man asked.

:Because, he's got a pregnant wife waiting at home, and an Elric always comes home.:

* * *

><p>From the first time she saw the rubble and smelled the death, Trisha had second-guessed her insistence on coming on this mission. She had even third-guessed it, but she had come. She had been assigned directly to General Kane's unit. While she wasn't surprised that she had not been assigned to her mother, Trisha did wonder that she had gotten so high profile a spot. Or, perhaps, it was because her mother knew that Trisha would never, in a million years, defy General Kane.<p>

It was also sort of odd being on a mission with so many people she knew, since she knew most of the State Alchemists as her mother's colleagues or subordinates, but a lot of them were at least several years older than her. _Maybe Mom and Kane did this on purpose. It's like being surrounded by older brothers and father figures._ She might never see action this way. Not that it was a fair thought.

It also wasn't true, even if she did feel a bit over-protected so far. Really, she was grateful. When the train had been forced to stop four times on the way down to Bueáire in order to clear rubble, rebuild tracks, and tend to the ill and wounded, Trisha had not been required to deal with the dead, or any of the more gruesome injuries. Though the smell of Bueáire was unpleasant, Trisha couldn't decide if the scent of broken sewer lines was better than the smell of death and decay.

As they walked up the streets towards the capital district, Trisha was a little surprised to see just how many people remained. Given the flood of people running for the border as they had come down, it was interesting to find that nearly half the population of Bueáire was still here, rebuilding what they had lost with whatever they had; working alongside the military and the incoming Amestrian and Cretan civilian aid.

Yet it wasn't all pull-together-for-the-good-of-everyone, Trisha noticed as they finally reached the top of the hill and the government square stretched out before them. There were at least three or four hundred people, in more than one group, with picket signs and unhappy faces.

Though none of them gave the Amestrians trouble as they came through; they merely got out of the way. Some smiled, others gave them unpleasant looks.

"What's all this?" Trisha couldn't help whispering, keeping tight on General Kane's heals.

"The usual state of things in Aerugo," Kane replied just as softly, and without appearing to have moved his mouth much, if at all. "Some of them have been hit harder than others. Everyone wants there share, and their lives fixed first. In some cases, they think this shake-up may shift the balance of power in the country and they want their part of it."

"How can people live like this?" Trisha had trouble imagining such a fractured state. Not that everyone in Amestris got along all the time, but it wasn't like this.

"Because it's what they know, and because they believe in the changes they're pushing for," Kane replied. "Amestris wasn't so different once."

"So they told us in school." Trisha wasn't stupid; she'd aced everything she'd ever been given to study in her history classes. But being aware of the past, and it being the past, and seeing so much discontent and feeling the tension in the air were just… very alien.

It was a relief to step out of the daylight into the cool interior of the building. Trisha followed Kane towards the Aerugean President's office with the rest of his retinue. She had the feeling she was going to learn a lot about the world while she was down here.

**October 23****rd****, 1971**

It had been two tense days since they heard the jaguar, but that didn't particularly make anyone in the Mustang family feel any better. The silence after the brutal attack was unnerving, and Maes was beginning to think that it would almost be better if the cat showed itself, or showed a definite sign of having gotten bored and decided to leave them alone.

Nikolaos, however, was convinced that the cat was stalking them; hunting them now that it knew they could be caught. Whether it was paranoia in the face of grief over his uncle's brutal death, or his experience talking, no one argued.

The camp fire was no longer allowed to die, ever, and the night watch always included two armed people. Maes watched as the dogs took turns circling the fire, sniffing the air. Occasionally one of them would growl, then return to where the others lay in a pile of pointy ears and noses.

It had been a while since Maes wished he had something to drink… other than water anyway. But the tension in the air, Rochelle's high fever, and Elena's slowly growing exhaustion, certainly made him miss the oblivion of alcohol. Which was, of course, why it was a good thing there wasn't any around.

Rochelle and Elena never sat watch. They went to bed early, like they had tonight, with the tent set up against a tall rock-face of a cliff for added protection. There was no way to get 'behind' this camp. Maes definitely preferred to limit the directions from which the enemy could come. It wasn't as if they could break and run anyway.

There was no hunting now, no foraging. They made due on what they had carried into the forest with them, and moved on as quickly as they could manage by day with his daughter growing ever sicker.

Tonight, now that dinner was over, it was Maes' turn on fire watch. Théa would eventually replace him. Right now she and Nikolaos were sitting nearby, eyes on the trees, and both were armed, though Théa looked very uncomfortable holding the weapon her grandmother had taught her to shoot just that morning. She just seemed to want to be near someone comforting.

Maes wasn't sure he liked that it was the Cretan boy, but since Roy was the other one technically on watch at the moment, and also within eye-shot of them, he supposed it was all right.

Riza sat by her grandson, cleaning what had been dubbed 'the arsenal.'

"Do you always carry this much weaponry?" Roy asked as he helped her clean not only the three guns Riza had brought on the trip in the first place, but the other rifle they had picked up besides the two that Nikolaos and Théa were currently holding.

"No," Riza admitted with a shake of her head. "If I know I'm going into combat, I carry more."

"Where do you keep it all?"

Riza arched one eye-brow. "Do you really want to know the answer to that question?"

Maes chuckled as his son's face turned pink even in the fire light.

Roy shook his head. "Umm… no. That's all right." He leaned back against the fallen log behind him and looked thoughtful. "Just a few more days until we're out of here right?"

"If we keep at this pace," Nikolaos spoke over the intervening distance. "There's a country road track that crosses through here, and it leads to that string of villages I was telling you about. Once we get there, we should never be more than a day's walk between villages the rest of the way to Creta."

"Too bad it's not the main highway," Roy sighed. "Maybe we could find transportation."

"That would take us two weeks more across wild country," Nikolaos shook his head.

Maes refrained from shuddering. They'd never make that, and Rochelle and Elena both needed a doctor. "We stick to the plan, and we'll make it," he commented with conviction.

Théa shivered. "I hope so."

* * *

><p>Roy never wanted to wake up to silence again. The darkness in the silence was the most terrifying thing he had ever experienced. Even breathing seemed loud; like it was giving away his location to the enemy.<p>

He stared into the dark, knowing it was the silence that had brought him awake again. That, and the light was down lower than it should have been. His hand closed on the pistol he had taken to sleeping with, even though he was more likely to draw a transmutation circle in the dirt and hit the enemy with alchemy if the cat ever got close enough.

A glint in the darkness resolved itself into two… glowing… eyes.

They seemed to stare right into Roy, and through him, focused with a deep pleasure in death and the surety of its coming… The wind brushes his face, warm, like feline breathing… then vanished…  
><em><br>Bark bark bark! _

"Everybody up!" The words ripped from Roy's throat as the dogs shook him out of his momentary paralysis. "Jaguar!"

Riza came bolt upright out of her sleep roll, gun drawn. "Where?"

"There!" Roy pointed into the trees where the dogs were now barking furiously, though staying right up against the fire which flared up with surprising brightness.

The glowing eyes were gone.

"Shit," his father growled, as he sat up. "Where is it? Why's the fire down!" He pushed forward to the front of the tent to join them.

Nikolaos was frantically poking the fire. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he was shaking his head, looking panicked, and oddly pale, and slightly sweaty himself.

Roy kept his weapon out as he forced himself to step past the edge of the tent so his grandmother and father could exit as well. It wasn't like the tarp really offered them any protection from the jaguar, except lack of easy visibility. "What happened, man?"

Nikolaos had one arm around Théa who looked embarrassed and terrified. "I didn't mean to," she sobbed, shaking. "I fell asleep out here instead of waking Grandma and…"

"I passed out," Nikolaos admitted, coughing even as he fed new wood into the fire.

Roy wasn't surprised. The Cretan guy looked like he was coming down with whatever Rochelle had. Before long, he wondered if they would all be too sick to travel.

"Well you're off shift tonight," Riza spoke up with her no-argument tone. "Maes and I will take it till morning."

"What about me?" Roy blurted out, even as he glanced back at the tent, where Rochelle still slept, and his mother sat, awake now and bleary eyed, looking concerned.

"Get some sleep," his father ordered. There was no mistaking his expression for anything else.

Roy shut his mouth on his next objection. It would do no good to insist that he couldn't sleep, not when that… that beast had just had him trapped in its sights. He'd been hopeless against it and all it had done was stare at him. Could he have even moved to defend against it in that state? Or would he have just died like Engelo, who had far more experience in this wilderness than Roy did?"

Still, his father looked insistent and sure, and he and Riza far more confident than Roy felt.

"Yes, sir," Roy replied. He would stay in the tent, and be another line of defense for his mother, and his sisters. "Come on, Théa."

"But I…"

"Nik too," Roy gestured towards the tent.

Nikolaos clearly had no intention of arguing. "I'm sorry," he croaked again as they crawled back into the tight sleeping space.

"No one died this time," Roy replied, knowing that was entirely reassuring. "Don't be too hard on yourself. We're all tired, it could have happened to any one of us."

He didn't say anything when Riza ordered the dogs to line up along the entrance to the tent, heads out, tails in. Somehow, Roy found that more reassuring than the weapon in his hand. It didn't matter if he panicked or froze… Grandma's dogs wouldn't.

But Roy had to wonder, now that he was facing a real life and death situation… was he honestly as brave as he used to think he was?

**October 24****th****, 1971  
><strong>

"I never want to have to unbury a dead body again," Tore shuddered as he dropped down at the slightly sticky-topped round table in one of the open Havah bars. Naturally, with everything else in shambles, the bars were open and –for the folks who had any money at all- were doing fabulous business even at cut-rate prices.

That was good with Tore, after today, he needed a drink.

Cal nodded as he joined him, waving at the serving woman. "Too many people couldn't get out of that hospital," he agreed.

It had been a grim, gruesome day. Tore knew it should have occurred to him that the sick and infirm couldn't escape easily… but finding dozens of dead, often elderly or children, had been a shock to the system. He didn't feel hungry, and wasn't sure he ever would again in the face of all those dead boys and girls. Each of them reminded him of Dare in some way, and Tore was –for perhaps the first time- truly homesick.

"Anyone else feel nauseated?" Jean asked as he sat down across from Tore.

"Yeah." Tore nodded, then looked up at the woman who joined them. "What do you have?"

"Tequila."

It took Tore a moment to realize that was the entire drink selection.

"We'll take three," Cal spoke for them all.

Tore rested his arms on the table and his head in his hands as he tried to get the images of the dead and mangled out of his head.

A tantalizing scent wafted into his nostrils, blowing through as if on a breeze, calming Tore for a moment as he closed his eyes, and sniffed… and recognized the smell. His eyes popped open as he jerked sharply upright and looked at Cal.

Cal paused mid-drag on his cigarette. "What?"

"Where'd you get that?"

Cal shrugged. "Off an Aerugean guy. He offered me one earlier."

Tore knew he shouldn't want it. He hadn't had a smoke since he got Dare but… damn it. Today was the worst he'd seen since the war with Drachma, in all honesty. He was shaky inside, much as he hated to admit it. It just smelled sooooo good. "I ah…" He paused, and swallowed.

It was then that the look of realization came to Cal's face. "Oh, shit, man I'm sorry." He immediately went to snuff it.

"Oh don't do that," Tore grimaced. "Not on my account."

Cal did it anyway. "Oh don't worry. If it makes you feel better, I'll relight it somewhere else later."

It wasn't fair. Cal never seemed to have a problem just dropping the habit whenever he felt like it. "Stupid."

That earned him a cold look. "You are if you think I'm willingly going to get my best friend in trouble with his wife… or me with mine."

Charisa would have been furious all right, Tore thought. She'd practically flayed his hide verbally before over the subject. Now… well Cal was just being what he said, a friend. Though Tore hadn't realized Alyse was that fond of him. "All right." But how, he was beginning to wonder, was he going to get through the rest of this? Another few days of extracting dead little kids and women and he'd be a real wreck.

"Don't worry about it," Jean smiled at him as the woman came back with their tequila. "We'll just all get drunk together till we don't remember today and that'll be that."

Cal reached for his tequila and took a long sip. "That sounds like a very good idea."

Tore could definitely agree with that sentiment. It didn't matter how bad the tequila really was. A couple of drinks later, he didn't feel like he needed a smoke.

**October 25****th****, 1971**

Edward had taken to splitting his time between the Infirmary tent and his and Al's 'field work.' His concern for Reichart was his real reason for this; not so much that he was really needed there for his alchemy. His grandson had been fevered for four days, and mostly unconscious, though he occasionally woke to sip soup and water. Ed wanted to be nearby. Not that he expected the worst –at least that's what he kept telling himself- but because he wanted to be there when Reichart woke up. Ed wanted to be able to call Resembool and reassure Aldon and –just as importantly- Deanna, that Reichart was fine.

So his heart leapt into his throat when he saw not one, but two, doctors coming out of the fabric walled room that held his grandson, shaking their heads.

"What's going on?" Ed asked, accosting them without greeting. "Is he awake?"

One of the Aerugean doctors recognized him, because he nodded and motioned Ed inside. :He's awake,: he informed him.

Wondering what had the doctors looking so bewildered, Ed didn't wait for any more invitations. What if something was wrong? He could still be severely ill. He could have lost part of his hearing or sight from fever. Ed pushed through the wall-

-to find Reichart propped up, inhaling his way through what appeared to be his third bowl of soup.

His grandson smiled weakly at him, and drained the rest of his bowl. "Hey, Grandpa. Nice face."

Ed shut his mouth, and covered his surprise with a relieved grin. "You know it's not good to gross people out by making them watch you inhale your food."

"So Mom always told us, and you told us not to worry about," Reichart chuckled. He looked better; a lot better, Ed thought as he looked him over.

"Fever broken?"

"And gone," Reichart confirmed. "I should be fine in a day or two. At least as long as they trust me to know how much I can eat."

"They seem to so far," Ed nodded at the pile of empty bowls.

"Soup anyway," Reichart rolled his eyes. "Hardly filling. But they didn't have what I really wanted."

"And what was that?"

Reichart grinned. "Steak."

Ed laughed. "If they ever do get a hold of some, let me know."

* * *

><p>Ethan finished scrubbing his hands and turned off the water before reaching for the scrap of clean towel hanging over the pipe. With a sigh, he stepped into the even-smaller room the doctors in the quarantined tent had for their own space and dropped onto a folding chair next to the little folding table that held a pitcher of tepid water. He reached for a glass, poured it full, and drained it in one long gulp. The alchemical treatments really took it out of him, but they were the only thing holding "the plague" at bay.<p>

"Was that groan you or the chair?" Max, one of the nurses, asked with a wry chuckle as he joined him and hit the other chair, which creaked in complaint even under Max's slight built.

"Both," Ethan admitted. "Long day."

"How many'd we lose?" Max asked, a solemn expression on a face clearly used to smiling.

"Three more," Ethan sighed. It was more than frustrating; it was downright depressing to see so many patients die. He could remember the last time that had happened, and it had been the disease that had nearly taken his own live in Xing. Ethan didn't like losing patients. Despite knowing that sometimes it happened, he still took it as a personal affront.

"Damn it. Makes you want a drink," Max sighed, reaching for the same tepid water. "And I don't mean this stuff."

Ethan sipped another glass and just nodded. The water almost tasted cool once he got used to it. The place was too warm for winter.

The wall parted and one of the orderlies stepped in. "Doctor Elric? There's a phone call for you."

The phone had been set up as a primary form of contact between the quarantine hospital and the rest of the world, so Ethan was used to getting the occasional call, usually from one of his parents just checking in. The calls were, out of necessity, kept short. "Who's it from?" he asked as he stood up.

"Your wife, sir."

Ethan bolted out of the room and out of the tent, nearly running across the grass to the little wood building that served as the communications post. He hadn't had a chance to talk to Lia in weeks. The last time he had managed to call home, most of the call time had ended up being Eamon and Lily babbling about how much they missed him. He didn't want to waste his precious phone time walking.

The female communications officer handed him the phone without a word.

"Lia?" Ethan blurted into the phone. "I'm here."

"Ethan…" His wife's voice didn't sound cheerful. Ethan felt his heart dropping. He knew that tone. Something was wrong.

"I've missed you," Ethan replied softly. "Are you all right? How is everyone?"

A sniffle. Shit. She was crying! "Daddy's gone, Ethan."

"Gone? Lia I…" Ethan stopped mid-question. Her parents lived in South City, cut off from everyone as much as he was, if only slightly less so. "Oh no… Lia."

"He died this morning," she continued in a slightly-hoarse whisper that told him she'd been crying on and off ever since. "He got sick last night, and Mom took him to the hospital right away but he… well you know he'd been ill recently anyway and he… died."

Ethan ached to take her in his arms and hug her tight, and comfort her. "Lia, I'm so sorry," he replied, his own throat tightening. He hadn't spent a lot of time with Lia's parents, but he had gotten along pretty well with her father. Now the man was gone, and his family was hurting. He didn't ask if she was okay; she obviously wasn't. "How are the kids taking it?"

"Lily's still crying some. Eamon's upset too, but he hasn't cried as much. Aeddan's just upset that everyone else is upset."

"How's your mother bearing up?"

"How do you think?" Lia snapped. "Oh, Ethan, she called me and I've never heard her so heartbroken! Daddy was everything to her, and now she's alone, and this stupid quarantine means I can't even go to the funeral!" Her voice broke, and fresh sobs came over the line.

Ethan cringed. "I know, it's not fair at all, but it's necessary. If it got to you and the kids and Central I…"

"That doesn't make it fair!" Lia replied. "Stop being so damned rational, Ethan!"

Ethan bit his tongue to keep his own temper in check. Lia had just lost her father. He needed to be patient. He'd never seen her this upset. Well, except when he'd almost died. She'd given him a thorough chewing-out for letting himself get sick then too. Rationality had no place here, just sympathy. "I'm sorry," he apologized. "I wish I could be with you right now."

"Can't you get some kind of exemption?" Lia pleaded. "I don't want you down there, Ethan. What if you catch this whatever-it-is plague too?"

"I can't," he reminded her as gently as he could. "That's why it's quarantine, Lia. Besides, they need me here. My alchemy is the only thing that's pulled some of our patients through." He didn't tell her how many they had lost. He doubted it would calm her down.

"But you could die!"

"I'm going to be fine," Ethan insisted.

"Art got sick…"

"With something else and he's making a full recovery," Ethan informed her, doubting she'd gotten this morning's news. "He's all right. Dad told me his fever broke this morning."

"But-"

Ethan saw the communications officer giving him the 'times up' finger signal. Damn it. "Lia, I have to go. Phone time's up. I'm sorry. I'll call you again as soon as I have the chance."

There was a long moment of silence on the other end. "You should find a way to come home, Ethan. We need you too." Then the phone clicked, and the line went silent.

Ethan handed the hand-set to the officer with a sigh. "Thank you." With a heavy heart, and a healthy dose of guilt, he headed back to work, wiping a little sweat from his brow with one hand as he moved through the muggy air. It felt like it was going to rain again, though he knew the rain wouldn't bring any relief from the humidity. Ethan felt sorry for his patients, suffering in this on top of their illness.

Lia's tear-wracked voice followed him back to the tent in his mind. _We need you too._


	5. Chapter 5

**October 27****th****, 1971**

It had been the worst experience yet, watching the little girl –no older than Lily- die right there in his arms as he tried, with all the alchemy and strength he had, to keep her going. Ethan staggered into the break room area and dropped into his 'usual' chair with a thud that made the chair creak in protest. He was too tired to drink; too drained to care. He had moved past dripping with sweat, for it was mostly sweated out of him from using so much alchemical power in such a fine-tuned sense for the half-hour he had fought to keep the girl living. Her parents, who weren't allowed anywhere near her once they had been declared to be non-carriers, would only now be finding out their baby girl was dead.

Ethan let his head sag back and he stared up at the green canvas ceiling. It wasn't right. Children should not be dying from something so horrible as this. Even the war had taken fewer casualties, and very few of them innocents. There had to be a way to cure them; to burn the disease out of them like they had with the blood disease that had taken Tore's mother, but he and Ren had managed to remove from both Tore and his son. There were treatments for the horrible disease in Xing –better ones now. Surely he could come up with something here. Why wasn't there a local remedy? Normally the cure came from the same place as the disease.

These problems swirled in his brain, mixing and muddling. He tried to focus on a solution –as he spent hours a day doing already- but Lia's tearful voice from the other day interrupted, crying over her father, and Ethan felt a sense of guilt at not having cured this already. Perhaps he could have saved his father-in-law, and saved his wife and his children the pain of losing a father and a grandfather.

What if it were his own parents, right down here in the middle of it all?

Ethan closed his eyes, and tried to focus. Something… there just had to be _something!_

* * *

><p>:There you go, sweetie,: Al grinned as he handed the little ragdoll –now pretty as new and far cleaner than she had been a moment ago- back to the little girl who took her eagerly and beamed at him.<p>

:Thank you, golden angel!: She giggled, then scampered back to her parents.

"Golden angel?" Al muttered to himself, though he couldn't help grinning. "Is that what they call us now?"

"It beats dog of the state, brat, shrimp, or heretic," Ed pointed out with a chuckle as he joined him. They had gone out together today, having finally reached the furthest outskirts of the extensive refugee village –it was far more than a camp now- and taking silent solace in the company of being together.

"You have a point there," Al nodded. "Well, I guess we should head back. At this rate we'll barely make it back in time for dinner."

"Can't have that," Ed agreed as they turned and headed down the road that rain straightest through the camp.

Golden angels; Al assumed the gold had to do with their still-blond –however lightened and nearing white it might be in some places- hair. Angels though, for bringing little comforts, from mending to the smaller healings the doctors didn't need to see but still made people miserable in their discomfort. He'd even managed to heal the wounds on over three-dozen family pets since arrival. "Do you feel like we're doing enough here, Ed?" he asked curiously.

Ed gave him a bemused look. "You mean fixing the little stuff, instead of rearranging the landscape with alchemy?"

"Yeah, something like that," Al admitted, chuckling at Ed's choice of alternative. "I mean, I like this. I like it a lot more than many of the missions we've had. Everything we're doing here is for someone specific, and lots of them. It's really helping the people with no reward except a smile and a thank you."

"But there's something much bigger going on here." Clearly Ed understood, because his brother nodded, his pony-tail tangling temporarily in the collar of his shirt and then shaking free. "We're not reinventing the capitol city out of ashes, or moving an entire volcano so it's not near Havah."

"No one's doing quite that," Al pointed out. The idea of shifting an entire volcano, with all the underground lava flows and channels, was far more dangerous than most alchemy they had attempted. It was even more difficult than Roy's famous flame wall. That wasn't on the agenda. "Though I'm sure they're getting a lot of good rebuilding done and helping the people here get things back together for themselves."

"That's how it ought to be," Ed nodded. "We don't need massive displays of alchemy. It wouldn't really look like we were putting effort into the work here. And they still aren't really fond of alchemy."

"We might be changing their minds." Al had seen the contemplative looks in many faces over the past weeks. Suspicion turned to acceptance, to sometimes eagerness at their arrival. He wondered if any of them had figured out who they were. It wouldn't have been that hard to identify two blond older Amestrian alchemists as Edward and Alphonse Elric; especially not when they went by Ed and Al. Perhaps not identifying themselves with their titles was part of why this had worked. "Without meaning to, we're making pretty good alchemical ambassadors."

"Don't tell Winry," Ed smiled. "She'll never believe I could be the ambassador of anything."

"Oh I don't know," Al chuckled. "You'd be great at convincing people just about anything is tasty."

"I said ambassador, not salesman," Ed grumbled, though he couldn't have been too mad because he elbowed Al in the ribs a moment later. "Besides, they'd all think I only eat it cause I look half-starved. You on the other hand."

"Don't you start!" Al shoved Ed back with his shoulder.

"Hey, who had the dream about the tiramisu shoving itself down his throat?"

"I was stressed out and on a diet!"

* * *

><p>It turned into a playful shoving match half way back to camp. Al thought he might have a chance of winning when they were interrupted by a man in uniform running up to them. "Excuse me, Sirs…" he panted as he came to a stop.<p>

"What do you need, Private?" Ed asked, noting the young man's insignia.

To his credit, the young man didn't wait to catch his breath, nor did he babble. "Your son, Doctor Elric, has fallen ill, Sir. I was sent to find you."

Ed felt his throat tighten. "Thank you, Private. Where should I report?"

"Mrs. Elric is waiting in the hospital tent, Sir."

Ed had to fight the urge to run. It would only cause concern and panic in the camp, and it wouldn't change what he found on the other side. He hadn't asked, because he wasn't sure he wanted to know –or that a private would know- what had struck his son down. Given where Ethan was working, he didn't feel he needed to. _Damn it, not again! Don't you dare take him from me!_ He couldn't say who he was shouting at, but the world as a whole seemed appropriate.

He didn't have to check to know that Al was right behind him.

Winry's pale face as he entered the waiting room told Ed all he needed to know to confirm his worst suspicions. He went right to her, gathering her in his arms as much for his own comfort as hers. "He'll be all right," were his first words. He had to believe them; he just had to. His son had survived against long odds before.

"They found him passed out on the floor of the break area," Winry whispered as she buried her face in his chest and squeezed him tight. "Oh, Ed…they won't even let me see him."

Ed squeezed her tightly. "Of course not. They can't risk it spreading." If Winry got sick… well, that thought didn't bear thinking about. It was worse than the idea of it happening to him. "Ethan's tough."

"Ed's right, Winry," Al spoke up softly.

"I know," she straightened up a little, and offered Ed a brave attempt at a smile, though it only lasted a moment. "I just… I don't know how I'm going to tell Lia."

"I'll call her," Ed offered, even though he dreaded having to tell anyone they might lose –no, he wouldn't think it- that a loved one was critically ill. Lia had almost lost Ethan before already to illness, and Ed knew she wasn't happy Ethan had come down here. It would hurt, but at least it wouldn't hurt Winry.

It was a sign of his wife's distress that she didn't argue. Ethan had always had it rough, been more prone to illness, despite being an otherwise hale and healthy child. He wasn't a child now… but Ed's heart ached anyway.

* * *

><p>Lia was grateful the children were all asleep in bed, because she couldn't stop sobbing into the pillow she held clutched in her arms. Brigitte, who had hopped up on the bed, lay with her little cream colored head on Lia's feet, which she licked consolingly, but Lia barely registered.<p>

Her mind was a whirl of grief and anger and illogical tangents and fear…. Fear above all. Ethan had barely made it in Xing. He got sick so easily. Why had he been stupid enough to insist on going down there and helping? He could die. He might really die, just as her father had died! She would never see Daddy again and now she might lose Ethan too… Why hadn't she convinced him to stay home? She'd given in in the end. She hadn't thought there would be something like this, even though her gut instinct had told her not to let him go. He'd wanted to go and she's acquiesced, and now there was absolutely nothing she could do for him but hope and pray he would live through this.

Because if he did, she was going to give him the reaming out of his life and never let him out of Central again!

**October 28****th****, 1971**

_Just another couple of days, _Riza thought as she looked the area over that they were considering for another camp. They were so very close; less than a day from the road Nikolaos insisted, and so maybe two days from the first village with which he was familiar. She, for one, would be grateful to get out of the forests at night, and was even more grateful the jaguar hadn't dared to show itself within even scent-distance of the dogs during the day. Not that it had gone away; but it knew better than to be caught up-wind.

That lesson had been learned the hard way two nights ago. Riza's only regret was that the only thing they had found in the morning was blood from where she had at least winged it. Unfortunately, there was still no other sign of the beast.

_Roy would have burned the forest down by now,_ Riza thought, thinking of how _her _Roy would have simply flashed the cat to ashes. Of course, Maes could barely light a fire now; not that he even bothered with alchemy. It took too much out of him now.

Her grandson had started using his alchemy in other ways, once he had started thinking. Riza didn't blame Roy for being afraid of the cat. He had been really shaking the first few nights. Perhaps that was why he had come up with ways to alter the terrain to make it uneven and less predictable for the cat, and their shelters sturdier. Not that alchemy could solve every problem.

Walls of dirt were useless, unless you wanted the cat to climb them and have the ability to leap in on you. A roof of dirt wasn't much better. Cornering themselves against cliffs and streams afforded only so much protection and the cat was getting bolder. Now, it was wounded and angry.

Riza never underestimated a wounded predator.

"This will do," Maes pronounced. "Roy, get to work on the defenses. Théa, help Nik get camp pitched. Mom and I will get water and anything we can use to supplement our food."

There wasn't much of that left either. Riza hated venturing the jungle, but the two of them had done all right so far. She wasn't so much afraid for herself, as concerned about leaving the others in camp.

Rochelle was delirious with fever, despite the mix of local herbs that Nik had first stopped and made a few nights before as they passed the plants he claimed they needed. It had been quite a process of boiling and rendering down, but it provided a thick, green, unpleasantly herbal smelling concoction that he insisted would help. To prove its safety, he had dosed himself with it first, heavily.

Only when Nik seemed to take no ill effect had Riza watched Elena and Maes agree to give it to Rochelle, whose fever had lowered even though it hadn't broken, and her breathing seemed easier. Maes had insisted that Elena take it as well then, arguing that she was tired and ill herself, and she was the one primarily taking care of Rochelle, and thus in the most danger of infection.

Though they had all taken a dose of the stuff. It was nasty, but Riza and the rest had remained healthy, so perhaps there was something to it.

Maes approached her, with two of the dogs. Riza preferred to take Hiko and Jima hunting, and leave the other two girls –Yelke and Mora- to watch the camp, especially since Yelke was very tired after each day's constant marching, and her pregnancy meant that the dog was not as energetic and needed more care. She was much better off being an alarm for the camp than hunting down food and being added protection for people.

"Let's go," Maes said, taking the other rifle she offered him. "We've got an hour before it starts to get dark."

* * *

><p>Roy hadn't thought they could be in deeper trouble. He was wrong. Despite the roaring fire, and the work he had put into covering their tent with a protective dome of hardened dirt that made it impossible for the jaguar to slash its way in from the top, sides, or behind… not only was the beast back, it had brought company.<p>

"I thought you said they don't hunt together," he whispered through a tight throat at Nikolaos. Both of them crouched by the fire, Nikolaos with a gun, and Roy with a transmutation circle already drawn on the ground. If they came at them, he planned to attack them with the ground itself, if his heart would just stop pounding.  
>"I think the other two are juveniles," Nikolaos responded. "There are enough of us, the old one probably doesn't want to argue over prey."<p>

Roy swallowed, his throat gone dry. "So they're going to attack, even though we know they're here."

"It doesn't really matter to a jaguar."

"If they attack, stick to the plan," Grandma Riza commented far too calmly from right behind him. "

"They know they're out of chances," Nikolaos swallowed, wiping sweat from his brow with a handkerchief. "We're almost home free once we hit the villages and we're the best meal they're going to find."

"Well we won't be the easiest," Roy's father replied grimly.

It really was only a matter of time, Roy realized. His palms were damp with sweat, and he was suddenly glad he wasn't trying to hold a weapon.

The cats' eyes blinked in the darkness, reflecting the firelight, though the rest of their bodies were invisible. Roy wasn't even sure if they were the normal tawny spotted, or if they were black, like Nikolaos had said they could be. It was just too dark, and he didn't really want to find out.

The waiting ended with a blood-curdling yowl as one of the young cats burst from the bushes in front of them, followed almost immediately by the second, and the eldest –a huge black beast- charged from the side.

Roy felt his grip on calm slipping fast. Earth wasn't going to be enough. It wasn't. Earth wasn't…earth… fire.

The fire roared and expanded, growing from merry to monstrous as it flared and lengthened, lines leapt out along the ground, shooting outward like the lines on a compass until they bent, and met in a circle around the camp… until they caught the lunging beast in mid-air and it went down screaming.

Roy would never forget the death cries of a dying jaguar, or the smell of its fur and meat as it burned.

A crack near his ear split the air and the second cat dodged, and screamed as it hit the flames and tried to backpedal.

Where was the big one. Roy's eyes darted around frantically as he fought to maintain the inferno his transmutation had created.

There, where deep skid marks marked its own attempt to stop, the monster yowled in frustration at the edge of the flames, the ends of its whiskers and part of its thick fur glowing as if it ended in embers.

Riza shot again, but the cat vanished into the brush without another sound.

"Damn it!" Maes cursed, sagging back against the berm that edged the tent. "It got away."

"We killed two of them." Riza lowered her rifle very slowly. "And injured the third." If she was at all surprised by the transmutation, nothing showed on her face. "Good work, Roy."

That was when Roy realized that Nikolaos was staring at him, though no one was staring harder than his father. Maes' eyes had gone wide as bowls. "Where the hell did you learn flame alchemy?"

Roy shrugged, and concentrated as he pulled the flames back into the fire pit. He doubted the cat was coming back soon. "I picked it up." Was his family angry? He knew that one of his grandmother's dictates to Fullmetal had been that he did not teach him flame alchemy. And Fullmetal hadn't.

"Dad's notes?" Maes finally guessed.

Roy nodded. "Grandpa's notes were in Fullmetal's library. I ah… sort of snuck a peek at them when no one else was looking." It hadn't been that hard. He'd had Fullmetal's trust for years, and he certainly hadn't meant any harm in it. "Not that I've done anything like this before," he admitted, gesturing to the smoldering ring around them. "I've just tried little things by myself until now, like lighting matches or old oil lamps. I blew up a couple of rocks."

"Well I'd say you're a lot better than that." His father surprised him with a smile, as he came over and clapped his hand down on Roy's shoulder. "That was some fabulous alchemy."

Relief flooded through Roy at his father's response. "Thanks. I'm just glad I didn't burn down the rainforest."

Maes nodded. "Me too."

"What are we going to do?" Elena asked from inside the reinforced tent.

Roy looked at his mother, she looked terrified. Théa, huddled in the back by Rochelle, looked like she might wet herself if she hadn't already.

Riza sighed. "I think we're going to have to trap and kill it."

"What?" Roy looked at her. "Are you serious?"

But Nikolaos was nodding too. "That was too close. If you hadn't done…what you did," he said, still looking goggle-eyed, "At least one of us would be dead now."

Roy nodded. "All right so, what do we do?"

**November 1st, 1971 **

Ed hadn't slept –at least not well, since he supposed passing out from exhaustion counted- for two days. He twitched, antsier than he had been in years, as he spent his time moving between the Amestrian side of the camp and the hospital tents. He hadn't even tried to go out into the tent village to help out. He couldn't focus, and he didn't want to appear irritated in front of all those refugees. Al thought he was being silly. Well, maybe he was, but Ed wanted to be close. In case they let them see Ethan. In case he got better, or worse or…well anything. As if his presence would be in any way helpful.

The worst part was, there were no alchemical doctors there who could give Ethan the same treatment he had been giving his patients. _Damn it kid. You're going to live, and then you and Ren are going to train some fricking help! _If they hadn't had to rely on Xing for alchemical healing in the Drachman war, they'd have been sunk. As it was, this wasn't enough. Surely there were talented medical students who could learn alchemy. Or perhaps better, alchemists who could learn medicine. That seemed to be the easier way to go. Medicine wasn't nearly as difficult to master as Alchemy. After all, more people became doctors than alchemists.

Ed tried to think about something else. He went to the mess tent, and ate lunch, though he barely tasted it. He wandered among the rows of tents. He even tried sparring with Al, which seemed to work until he found himself pinned to the ground with Al sitting on top of him grinning wickedly.

"Had enough?" Al asked as he helped Ed to his feet.

Ed nodded. "Yeah. Sorry. My head's just not in it."

"I noticed that when you almost took my head off earlier," Al admitted, rubbing his neck, though his grin was good-natured and sympathetic. "You want to vent about it?"

Ed didn't need any more of an invitation than that. Ironic, he thought, that he'd waited for one. "I'm going crazy waiting like this," he blurted out as they started walking back towards his tent from the little grassy area on the outskirts of camp they had picked for sparring. "And I feel like a dog after having to call and tell Lia. I'm glad I saved Winry the pain, but you should have heard her Al… and this on top of just losing her father to the same disease. I feel even worse knowing how scared Eamon and Lily must be." He knew Aeddan was confused and upset by everyone else's troubled feelings. He knew, worse, how it felt to lose parents.

So did Al. He felt his brother's arm around his shoulder, and it was comforting.

"Do you really think he might not make it, Ed?" Al asked softly. "I mean, you're not an optimist, but you sound like defeat's certain. Is there something you haven't told me?"

Ed had to shake his head. "No. I just… I don't know, Al. I have an uncertain kind of a feeling, and I don't want it to be right. After last time…"

"He's made it this long," Al cut him off. "Forget the odds, Ed. We've all fought longer, and so has he, because we flat out refused to be beaten."

Ed smiled and hugged his brother back as they walked. "Thanks, Al. I needed that."

* * *

><p>The cat had to be nuts. That was the only solution Maes could come up with. Of course, he was beginning to think that they were nuts for putting this plan into action; and it was his plan!<p>

It was risky, but Maes was fairly certain all the bases had been covered. Their location had been picked with excruciating care, enough that they had stopped an hour earlier than usual because they came upon the perfect spot to try and pull off their little trap.

The clearing had many things going for it. The primary one being that other than being near the stream they'd been following, it was empty thanks to a couple of large trees that had fallen years ago, except for one good sized tree in the center that didn't touch limbs with any others…. And in the nearest hill, a shallow rock cave. Everything they needed, because they were going to have to outsmart the jaguar.

Maes had put a lot of thought into the strategy, conferring with Nikolaos about jaguars and terrain, and considering how to make best use of all their weapons… including the surprise –but welcome- addition of his son's ability to use flame alchemy.

And, of course, other forms of alchemy, because the plan would never have worked without it. The first thing Maes had Roy do, was use alchemy to dig out a circular ditch that ran all the way around the clearing, several feet wide and over fifteen feet deep. Then they filled it with a good portion of the dried and flammable debris lying about on the ground in the clearing. And if it wasn't dry, Roy used alchemy to dry it out nicely. That, and spikes made of hardened clay in the bottom, made for a very nice modified "tiger pit." The problem, of course, was that jaguars were amazing climbers, but that was why the jaguar pit had so many thin spikes, and enough flammable material to help along a transmutation that it would blow up a tank.

And that was only the first level of defense. There were false bodies – transmuted pillows of grass and leaves – dressed in spare and ragged clothes off the girls, which were tucked 'up' the tree, so it smelled like Elena, Théa, and Rochelle were all taking refuge in the tree instead of sleeping on the ground again, despite the obvious familiar set up of the dirt-covered-tent on the ground below.

Naturally, only a fool would hide up a tree from a feline who could run up a tree faster than a person could fall out of one. The only person _in _the tree was his mother, with three loaded weapons. If the jaguar tried to go up the tree, he would not only have to contend with attacks from below, but a gun aimed straight into his face.

The dogs had been told to sit and stay in the doorway of the tent, as they always did. It also helped hide that anything was different, because there was one critical difference. And that was that Elena and the girls were actually tucked safely away in the little cave which –thanks to Roy and his alchemy- now had only one entrance that was not at ground level, and had been difficult enough for the girls to crawl into let alone the jaguar to have any hope of getting to them. If nothing else went right, the three of them were safe. At least as long as the absolute worst didn't happen.

Maes was fairly certain the jaguar couldn't kill four of them.

He, Roy, and Nikolaos were the only ones out in plain sight, not that it was unusual since they set themselves in the usual arrangements of guarding the fire and the camp, with weapons, and food on the fire, because the smell of cooking meat would definitely lure the cat their direction.

As it got dark, Maes tried not to feel anxious as they purposefully let the fire go down once everyone had eaten and was in position. The light from the fire extended barely to the edge of the now-buried and hidden ring trap around them. It was hidden so well it might as well not be there, and it was only a mild comfort that it was there at all.

Maes watched the two teenage boys sitting with him, and wondered at how well they'd held up. Nikolaos was used to roughing it, but clearly this was far more than he had ever dealt with before, and despite being ill himself, and his uncle's death, he was an invaluable guide.

Roy had impressed him. Not that he wasn't always proud of his son's accomplishments, but it took a disaster like this one to really test a man and see what he was made of. His son had demonstrated himself to be extremely capable, despite his fears and inexperience, and not only a survivor and quick thinker, but an impressive alchemist. Maes wished he could say his son reminded him of himself, but more and more, he looked at his son and saw a younger version of _his_ father.

_You'd be so proud of him, Dad. All of them._ Even the girls were holding up, though Maes had to force himself not to dwell on Rochelle and Elena's illness. Especially not Rochelle. Despite all the water and medicine they could get into her, she rarely regained consciousness, and the fever continued.

A poke to his leg broke Maes out of his reverie and he noticed the stick that Roy had used to jab him. Maes looked up at his son who nodded off to the right. Pretending not to look, Maes glanced over, and saw the glow of luminous eyes. Their hunter was back.

No, their _target_ was back. Only this time the cat didn't know they were hunting him.

Maes gave only the slightest nod to both boys to let them know he had seen the jaguar. Only now, they had to pretend to be off guard. That was the hard part. So Maes leaned back, pretending to be reclining, despite the fact his muscles were taut and ready to move at a moment's notice. A moment was all he would have, even though the primary part of this plan required Roy to succeed, not him. If Roy didn't succeed, than it would be up to guns and dogs, and Maes didn't want to see that fight. _Come on, you damned cat. Come on out and let's get this game of mouse over with._

The jaguar did not cooperate. Instead, the eyes vanished into the brush. Maes didn't even try to squint into the inky blackness beyond the fire's glow. The odd glow of moonlight on their ring around the tree seemed eerie after so much time camping under nothing but canopy. It wasn't rainy tonight.

The attack came in a silent rush from the right –thirty degrees from the cat's last position. A shadow detached itself from the rest and charged, and only its appearance in the moonlight marked it before the eyes glinted and it sprang.

"Roy!" Maes barked, bringing his weapon to bear even as the fire once more roared to life and the ring cracked and broke and fell under the jaguar's feet.

With a yowl the black beast seemed to twist in midair, and landed barely on the inside of the ring with an awkward thump.

Damn it, _damn it_! Maes sprang up and took aim, watching Nikolaos come to bear at the same moment as Roy grimaced and the now-visible pit sprang into a fiery inferno.

The jaguar snarled as it regained its feet and backed away from the flames quickly, singed again. Then it turned, and its eyes fell on them, and it snarled.

Maes avoided looking into the cat's eyes. Never look a predator in the eye. He focused right above the eyes…and fired.

The fire and the dancing shadows were bad enough; the cat lunged at that moment, and two bullets dug into the dirt below his feet.

"Move!" Roy's flames leapt out of the pit and reached towards the jaguar, even as it charged them… but they fell back, and the boy sagged, clearly having reached his limits of control.

The dogs snarled and lunged-

-Maes blinked, and brought his gun back up again-

-and a shot from above hit the jaguar square in the head.

The black monster fell dead five yards from Maes' feet.

_Oh man… that was close. _Maes wiped his forehead on his arm and looked up into the tree. "Nice shot, Mom."

There was a snort from the tree. "Anyone could have made that shot, Maes."

Maes' laugh of relief sounded shaky, even to him. "Maybe I need to spend more time at the range."

The dogs had surrounded the corpse, snarling and snapping and tugging at it. That, more than anything else, had him convinced that their enemy was dead.

"Let's drop that corpse in the fire," Maes suggested as he got to his feet. "I don't think I want to sleep with it lying there."

"Shame to waste the fur," Nikolaos commented as the boy finally found his voice. Maes noticed he was white as a sheet even in the firelight.

"You really want to skin that thing?" Maes gestured at the body.

"Um, no, not really."


	6. Chapter 6

**November 4****th****, 1971**

Edward lay in the darkness staring at the ceiling of white canvas of the tent he and Winry shared, his arms crossed behind his bed as he tried to pretend he was getting a restful night's sleep. Beside him, Winry was curled up against him, sleeping deeply after another long hard day of work. Ed envied her the sheer amount of energy and focus that auto-mail engineering required. Despite her worries, Winry slept hard all night while he lay there, restless, but refused to move because Winry was curled up against his side… and he wasn't going to deprive her of his side to snuggle against.

He also found his only real solace in that warm, living presence that shared his bed. Winry was the root of his world, and as long as he had her, he was firmly tied to everything that mattered. That included the children they had created and raised together, and the huge, boisterous family that was an extension of that love.

Lately, Ed could remember all too well Ethan's early years, when their rambunctious little boy didn't yet have all his fingers; when he was still small, and smaller than most. As he had grown he had gotten more robust, and it had been so easy to forget –to want to forget- how delicate Ethan had been at birth and in his toddler years. Healthy but small, and he had still gotten sick more often than some babies. More than Sara and Aldon had.

Ethan had always been his special son. Not that Ed didn't love them all equally; because he did. The loss of any one of his children was a devastating thought despite the very real possibility it had been in the past. But Ethan had been the result of relief at not losing Winry in that terrible car accident. Ethan had nearly been lost at birth –and Winry too, though Ed preferred not to think about that. He was fairly certain Winry and the doctor hadn't figured out that Ed had figured that out on his own. Ethan had been small, and lacking fingers, and had needed Ed in his own special ways. That, and Ethan had never cried at the touch of Ed's auto-mail. They had bonded from the boy's birth, and Ethan more than the others, had always been his father's son.

_Right down to his stubborn insistence on doing what he feels he has to do._ Ed blinked away tears.

Dawn was creeping in. Birds began to chirp occasionally in the trees outside. The canvas began to lighten ever so slightly, and soon enough Ed knew he would need to wake Winry from her slumber and start another day. Then Ed would have to force down a breakfast his stomach insisted on, but he wouldn't feel like eating, and then they'd have to go back to everything that needed doing for the displaced and disparate of Aerugo, while pretending their own son wasn't in danger of dying any minute in a tent they weren't even allowed to enter.

Footsteps ran by the tent outside, then skidded to a stop, and backed up, and stopped.

Ed sighed. Someone sure had to go to the bathroom.

"Grandpa?"

"Reichart?" Ed sat up abruptly enough he jostled Winry from her spot.

Reichart's face poked through the flaps of the tent door. "Sorry to wake you, Grandpa. You've got to come!" He was panting heavily as if he'd run all the way from the hospital tents. "It's Uncle Ethan."

For a moment, Ed thought his heart had stopped.

"What's wrong?" Winry sat up, voicing the words stuck in Ed's throat.

"Oh… damn it," Reichart cursed. "I'm sorry. No. Nothing's wrong. Ethan's okay! I mean, he's going to be," he babbled. "He's awake and he… he wants to see you."

It took a moment for the good news to seep through Ed's feeling of dread. As soon as it did he was on his feet dragging on clothing. Winry was even faster. "Well you took long enough to say it!" Ed barked at his grandson as he stuffed his feet into his boots. Who needed socks anyway? "Where is he?" He doubted the rules about the quarantine tent had been lifted.

"They moved him to the recovery ward," Reichart explained, standing out of the mad scramble. "You don't want to know the elaborate insanity that goes into moving patients out of that place. I swear the disinfected everything in the transfer wards at least five times, Ethan included."

"Bet he liked that," Ed snorted as he didn't even bother with a jacket. It was warm enough. "Ready, Winry?"

"Waiting on you," his wife laughed, grabbing his hand. "Let's go!"

* * *

><p>Being run over with a steamroller might have been preferable to this, Ethan thought in a particularly lucid moment. He certainly felt as if he'd been flattened and wrung-out and laid out to dry out. He remembered little to nothing of the days he'd been deliriously fevered, except the vague recollections of his own attempts –foolish as they were- to try and work healing alchemy on himself whenever he was even briefly conscious. <em>Just knocked myself back out with exhaustion for the most part,<em> he snorted to himself. Imagine, studying a disease while trying not to die from it? Maybe he really was just a little too into his job.

Still, it _had_ given him ideas that, as soon as he was well –if not sooner- he intended to see about implementing.

The sounds of feet –three human and one slightly clunky one- outside the flap that served for a door into his little closet of a space with the privacy curtains up, were easily recognizable. Ethan was sure he had never been so happy to see his parents as they came into view, mostly leaning over him since he was still lying prone on his back.

"Hi, Mom… Dad," Ethan offered them a small, sheepish smile.

"Oh, Ethan!" His mother wrapped her arms around him with surprising gentleness given the emotion in her voice.

His father smirked at him. "You look like crap, kid."

Kid. _Heh. _"Then I look better… than I feel," Ethan gave a weak, self-depreciating chuckle.

"At least the fever's gone." His mother smoothed his hair on his brow.

"I'll be fine," Ethan tried to reassure her. Given how close he'd come to death –again- he was half reassuring himself.

"That's what Art said," Ed nodded, one hand resting on top of Ethan's hand on top of the sheets.

The human contact with someone other than nurses felt really good. Ethan had hated quarantine as a patient even more than he had as a doctor. "Well it's true, and I'm immune to the stupid thing now, or so they tell me. You can only get it once."

"Once is more than enough," Winry sniffed. "So you're not in quarantine anymore. What will you do now?"

When he was better she meant, and Ethan didn't have to ask for clarification on the implications. He was still stuck behind the Southern quarantine zone. He couldn't go home, but he could rejoin the rest of them if he wanted to. Except that if he did, the most serious cases here, and any chance of finding a cure, would be gone. "What I have to."

His mother glared at his father. "He gets it from you, you know."

Ed shrugged. "I'm not the only stubborn person in this family."

"I'm here you know," Ethan grumbled. He was tired of being talked over too. It was really hard to get along with doctors and nurses that talked over you all the time, and often in another language! He licked his lips, which still felt parched. "Can I have some water?"

"Of course." His mother picked up the glass by his bed and helped him cock his head enough to actually take sips. The last time Ethan had required this kind of care, it had been Lia that gave it to him, and tended to him while he recovered. Though at least this time his recovery would be swifter, and would not require physical therapy.

Lia. "Had someone called Lia?"

"Art called and woke her up," his father assured him with a laugh. "You can call her yourself when you're well enough to walk to the phone. She'll be glad to hear from you."

"Not when I tell her I still can't come home," Ethan sighed. He still felt guilty. Lia had been right. He'd gotten deathly ill again.

"She knows that," his mother assured him.

_She's not going to like it that I'm continuing to treat the sickest patients here though. There's other diseases. _Maybe he would just avoid that part of the conversation. At least this time. All he wanted was to hear the love and relief in his wife's voice, and talk to his kids and reassure them that Daddy would be coming home when he could, just like he promised.

But he had to find a cure for this, and a vaccine if possible. Ethan couldn't leave it alone.

"You should get some rest," Ed commented, apparently mistaking his expression of mild distress for exhaustion or apprehension of a different type. "Now that you're out here, we'll come by and see you as often as we can, or at least as often as we can bully our way in," he added with a wolfish grin.

Ethan couldn't help smiling. "Don't hurt them too bad. I still have to work with them later."

* * *

><p>Roy had never been so grateful to see a rundown little village. The place couldn't be much bigger than their neighborhood in Central, but after days in the wilderness, the few streets of cobbled-together old fashioned wood-and-stone houses it was a bastion of safety. He hobbled on lame legs into town, with Nikolaos leaning on his shoulder.<p>

"I never thought I'd be so happy to see a complete backwater," he admitted, panting and ignoring the rain drizzling down on top of them. It didn't matter now.

"Me either," Nikolaos admitted with a weak grin. "Sorry I gave out on you back there."

"Don't worry about it," Roy shook his head. "You're the one who knew how to get here, and how to keep us alive. Least I can do is help you limp a few miles."

He was sure the group of them looked appropriate pathetic dragging into town at their slow pace, and Roy wasn't surprised when before long several faces appeared out of windows or in the street watching them. Seven foreigners straggling out of the rainforest had to be more excitement than they usually got around here. _Well, before the earthquake anyway._

His father was carrying Rochelle in his arms, while his mother leaned on her similarly. Only Grandma, the dogs, and Théa were moving on their own power or without having to assist anyone.

Roy heard shouts in the village, and by the time they reached the front gate –the place was surrounded by a quaint but effective looking wood-and-stone wall structure- there were several middle-aged men and women waiting for them.

"You know any of these guys?" Roy asked. Nikolaos was the one who'd been through here before after all.

Nikolaos squinted then nodded. "Yeah. Those are the village elders." Then a look of relief crossed his face. "The taller woman, the one whose hair is still black? She's the local doctor."

Apparently they recognized Nikolaos too.

:Where is your uncle?: One of the old men asked immediately, coming forward.

:Dead,: Nikolaos replied, looking them straight in the face. Roy was impressed at how steady he sounded when he said it, leaning on Roy as he was. :We were hunted.:

The man hissed slightly in his throat and shook his head. :There has been a man-killer in this area for several months now.:

:There isn't any more,: Roy's father said as he came forward. :It's dead, along with two others who attacked us.:

The man looked at Maes, then Elena and the rest of them. Elena, at least, was the only native in the bunch. :Then you have our thanks, and our hospitality. I am Elder Teko. You have obviously traveled far and perilously, but your story will wait until you have been seen. Paera, see to them quickly. Several seem to have taken ill.:

That was an understatement. :Lead the way,: was all Roy said to the doctor who came forward then and escorted them all quickly into a building just inside the gates that was marked as a hospital.

It was a surprisingly large building, and easily the most modern in town, about the size of a typical two-story house. Well, typical for Central.

:I treat the ill and injured for several villages around. I am Paera Gonaldez,: the doctor introduced herself. :Please, put the girl in the first room. Ma'am, the second," she pointed to the first two. :You,: she looked at Roy and Nikolaos. :The third. I will see to the ill first, and in that order. Then the rest of you.:

:We're fine,: Roy objected.

:You have been wandering the forests for how many days?: the doctor's eyebrow went up knowingly. :I wish to make certain that you are as healthy as you think you are.:

Well, given their bedraggled, hungry state, Roy couldn't argue. :Sorry, ma'am.:

She smiled at him then. :It's all right. Rest, and help yourself to water. I'm certain someone will be here to feed you before I'm done with you all. That's how things work in this village.:

"What is the name of this place anyway?" Roy asked Nikolaos as he helped him into the small room they had been sent to.

"Karmin Village," Nikolaos replied. "It means haven."

Aptly named.

* * *

><p>Maes gently pushed a lock of hair from Rochelle's forehead as he watched his daughter sleep. No doubt, the doctor had said. She had contracted a very dangerous rainforest illness that killed over half the people who caught it. Yet she still lived and, so doctor Gonaldez had told him, actually seemed to be on the mend. Hard to tell with her fever, but apparently surviving more than three or four days was a reasonably good sign of likely survival.<p>

And apparently, Maes had the folk-remedy herb concoction that Nikolaos had insisted they dose themselves with to thank for it.

:I will talk to him about it,: the doctor had said. :He makes it well. It's not a cure, but it is the only thing we've found so far that helps at all. I need to know where he found so much of the right plants. They are often difficult to find.:

Then, after dosing Rochelle with some of what the doctor had made up herself, and something for the fever and the discomfort, she had gone to check on the others. Maes knew she was going to look at Elena next, but as Elena had never developed a fever, he suspected that she had not caught the same disease despite constantly caring for their daughter.

"Hey," Roy poked his head in. "How's she doing?"

Maes looked up at his son, and smiled tiredly. "Better. Her fever's actually down a little."

"Let's hope it stays that way," Roy sighed, stretching. Maes had never heard a younger man's back crack as much as his son's did in that moment. "I just want to find a real bed and sleep for a month… after a good meal."

"Of course." Maes chuckled. His own stomach was rumbling, though he didn't doubt it that there would be the promised food before much longer. "I could eat a-"

-a startled cry from the other room brought him to his feet.

"Mom?" Roy glanced at the door.

Maes didn't answer, he just bolted for the door and into the hall, and immediately into the doorway of the other room. "Elena?" he gasped, fearful. "What's wrong?"

His wife sat on the bed while doctor Gonaldez sat in the chair, looking at Maes with an arch expression. Elena still looked pale and shocked.

"Well?" Maes looked between them. He didn't like the look of concern on Gonaldez's face. He heard feet behind him, and guessed that Roy had followed.

Elena wiped her brow with a handkerchief. :It's all right, Maes,: she replied slowly. :It's nothing serious.:

:On the contrary,: Gonaldez shook her head. :You shouldn't say such things. He deserves to know the truth.:

Elena nodded slowly.

Maes tried not to wipe his sweaty palms on his pants as he crossed the room and sat down. :Elena? What's wrong?: If possible she looked even more ill than she had hiking through the woods.

Elena looked up at him with wide eyes. :I'm pregnant.:

"You're… what?" Maes found himself staring at his wife as the words failed to process properly. Surely he'd misheard that. They were both over forty! "But… Elena!"

Laughter erupted from the doorway and Maes turned at the sudden sound.

"You should see your face, Dad," Roy howled.

The shock broke. Maes looked back at Elena, who was still looking at him… expectantly. "Well," Maes smiled weakly, though he had to admit he could sort of see the humor in the situation…and felt a wave of relief that it was something far better than finding out his wife had some other horrible disease. "At least no one can say we didn't enjoy our vacation."

"Maes!" Elena smacked his arm, then began to chuckle softly and snuggled into his arms. "That's terrible to say… even if it is true."

:I was just discussing this with your wife,: the doctor cut back into the conversation. :She does have a bit of fever, but it's not the illness your daughter has and she is mostly recovered on her own, but your ordeal has been quite a strain. You need to stay here for a time and rest, all of you, until your daughter is well and your wife rested. Later life pregnancies can be difficult.:

:Of course,: Maes replied. Pregnant… pregnant… the world ran around in his brain. Another child? Roy was almost eighteen! Maes wasn't sure he even remembered how to change a diaper.

:Shoo,: the doctor said again with a wave of her hand. :This is women's talk and you are interrupting.:

Well, at least she wasn't subtle. :Sorry.: Maes reluctantly let go of Elena. :I'll be back soon,: he promised, kissing her cheek and heading to the door.

Outside, Roy was grinning his head off, even though he looked a bit stunned as well. And why not? It was going to mean a big change for all of them.

He wasn't prepared for his son's hand to clap down on his shoulder and Roy's look of wicked delight. "Dad, if you ever lecture me on birth control I'm going to remind you of this moment."

Maes snorted. "Got any reason I should have to?"

He watched his sons ears turn a little red as Roy's hand dropped from his shoulder. "Of course not!"

"Good." Maes grinned. He just hoped it stayed that way for a good long time!

* * *

><p>Nikolaos had also caught the fever Rochelle had, but not nearly as badly and he was also slated to make a full recovery, though doctor Gonaldez had ordered him into a bed as well. Théa seemed torn between who to stay with, and she flitted from bed to bed between Rochelle and Nikolaos, though she did join the rest of the family for food.<p>

Roy, for his part, played grateful guest and stuffed himself on everything the townspeople had generously brought them to eat. A hearty, spicy beef stew and cornbread, refried beans, hot fresh flat breads slathered in butter. Fresh steamed vegetables and a huge, deep, hot tropical fruit tart rounded out a meal that demonstrated that the little town had not suffered badly from the shake.

"Slow down," his grandmother said from across the table in the little side-room of the hospital they had all been given to sit and rest in. "You'll make yourself sick."

Roy knew her words were probably true after as little as they'd had the past weeks, but he wasn't sure he cared. "At least I'll die happy," he smirked at her as he upended the last of his third bowl of stew into his mouth and then reached for another one of the flat breads, rolling it up and gulping it down.

"And fat," Théa stuck her tongue out at him as she ate her own bowl with all the decorum of a state function with small, proper bites. It was only her second bowl too.

"You know, after this month, I can think of worse fates," Roy laughed, emphasizing the point by reaching for a huge slice of the fruit tart. He was pretty sure he had a few corners of his stomach left to tuck it in.

"I doubt Trisha Heimler would agree."

"Low blow, Sis." Roy took a bite anyway, not really worried.

His parents said nothing, not that that surprised him. Ever since the news that his mother was pregnant –a shocker there- they had been rather absorbed in each other and a bit distracted. Roy wasn't sure who was more surprised. He certainly hadn't seen it coming, but obviously neither had his parents. At their age… well it certainly wasn't impossible, but it was pretty rare.

"So," Roy shifted the subject. "We're staying here for a while. Any idea how long?"

"Until Rochelle recovers at least," Grandma Riza replied in that tone that brooked no argument. "By then we should all be ready to continue. From what Nikolaos and the locals have said, it's still over a week on foot to the Creta border, and we don't have a ride. Walking is out of the question right now for both Nikolaos and Rochelle, and Elena," she added with a stern look at her daughter-in-law.

Elena and Maes looked over at her. Elena smiled tiredly from where her head rested on her husband's shoulder. She looked like she ought to be asleep too, but Roy had quietly watched his mother nibble her way through two bowls of the stew, and three pieces of corn bread, before filling up on vegetables. "Of course, Riza."

"You've done enough," Maes assured her, kissing her forehead. "It's definitely time to take it easy while we can."

Not too long, Roy knew. They needed to get somewhere where they could contact home and let someone know they were alive. But for now, it was nice to not have to face another foot-march in the morning… or a killer in the night.


	7. Chapter 7

**December 10****th****, 1971**

"That's the last of them," Cassie said as she set the tray of molasses cookies down on the rack on the counter to cool.

"That ought to be enough to last us a while," Deanna agreed with a chuckle as she leaned back against the counter and wiped the flour off her hands on her apron.  
>"Maybe," Callista said as she eyed them longingly. "I bet the boys eat them all by tomorrow."<p>

"Oh not tomorrow," Cassie corrected her daughter. "Though you're right, it won't take them long." It never did around here.

"Then we should take our share now," Deanna suggested to Callista with a chuckle as she reached for one of the large cookies on one of the first racks that had come out and were mostly cool. "Then we won't feel bad when the boys pig out on them later."

"Can I, Mom?" Callista looked up hopefully.

Cassie smiled. "Go ahead. Have a couple. Both of you." She caught Deanna's eye as her daughter-in-law finished the first and reached for a second.

Deanna's cheeks turned pink, but she grinned as she took another cookie. "Little one can have Daddy's share," she chuckled. "Since Art's not here to devour them."

"I don't think he'll mind." Indeed, Cassie was sure Art would have insisted, if he were here. At least for part of it. There was certainly a delight in watching her daughter-in-law, covered in flour, apron snug across the small bump of pregnant tummy, smiling contentedly over a fresh hot cookie. "Don't move."

"Okay," Deanna looked at her bewildered as Cassie hurried out of the room, then returned a moment later with the camera off the desk in the study.

Deanna laughed when she saw it, and Cassie snapped a picture. "There, now, should we send that one down to Art?" Through very carefully monitored travel lines, the occasional mail carrier could take mail down to South City, leave it at a drop location, and it would be taken from there and disseminated to the southern region of the country.

"Yes!" Callista grinned. "He'll love it."

Deanna chuckled. "Then maybe we should box up and ship a few of these cookies too."

* * *

><p>"And that's when the three kids asked me to fix their tree house, which I did. I'll write again soon. Love you, Daddy." Charisa put down Tore's letter to Dare –it had come in the same envelope as the one written to her- and smiled at the little boy. "See. Daddy's up to all sorts of interesting things in Aerugo."<p>

Dare, dressed for bed in his fuzzy green pajamas, snuggled against her side and sighed. "Yeah. I wish I could go."

"You can't miss school," Charisa chuckled, kissing the top of his head as she gave him a squeeze with one arm. "And as soon as everything's fixed, he'll be home and you can tell him all about what you've been up to." She wished Tore had been able to call, but she understood that it was pretty much impossible to route calls up from central Aerugo at the moment. At least, not much in the way of personal calls. At least he was good about writing. She didn't like having him gone like this. "All right, kiddo. It's bedtime."

"Can I have a glass of milk, Mommy?"

"If you get into bed without arguing." Charisa smiled and let him go.

Dare hopped out of the chair and ran for the stairs.

"You make a great mother, you know that?"

"I had a great teacher." Charisa turned and smiled at her father, who was sprawled out on the couch reading a book. "And Dare's a very easy child to take care of. He wants to please people."

"You certainly," Breda chuckled as he stuck a bookmark between the pages and sat up slowly. "He doesn't always mind me."

"That's because you're easy on him, _Grandpa_," Charisa chuckled as she stood up and helped her father sit up by offering him her hand.

"Yeah well, he adores you," Breda replied. "Must run in the family."

_Well I should certainly hope so._ Tore made it clear, every time he could, just how much he loved her and appreciated her. Even his letters, despite being full of the truth of his trip, more so than the little tidbits he shared with Dare, was also full of his love and devotion and how desperately he missed her.

Now that was a love letter.

"Mommy! I'm in bed!"

"Better get moving," her father smiled at her as he hefted himself to his feet. "You've got milk to deliver."

Charisa smiled. Dare's naturally treatment of her, as if she were his birth mother, always made her feel warm inside. "And you can feed the cat," she replied as she headed for the kitchen.

At the sound of his species, Rapscallion sat up from his lounging spot along the back of the couch and meowed pitifully.

"Don't over feed him!" Charisa warned.

Behind her she heard her father mutter, "Sorry, pal. She does that to me too."

**December 12****th****, 1971  
><strong>  
>Roy paused and put down his shovel, wiping his forehead on the long sleeves of the blue flannel shirt they had picked up in the village. In return for a few days of work around the place, the whole family had been allowed to stay; in the hospital or at the house of a gentle old widow with several empty bedrooms that had belonged to her grown children.<p>

Today he and Nikolaos were helping several folks put up a new fence around some fields to keep out the local plant-eating wildlife. It had been fenced before, but the old fence had finally rotted to the point of being beyond ill-repair in the most environment, and so Roy had spent today, and the past two days for that matter, digging post holes. He had done plenty of other things around the village too, but this was by far the most physical labor. It wasn't easily done with alchemy either; at least not his specialties.

:That's it!: The farmer who was in charge of the project called out. :Everyone break for dinner. See you tomorrow.:

At last! Roy leaned against the last recently finished stretch of fence.

"Hey!" Nikolaos called out as he approached with two pottery mugs. "Have a drink. Old widow Vera brought it."

Behind him, Roy realized the woman was serving everyone out of a cold pitcher. "What is it? I'm parched." He reached for the mug eagerly. Water? Fruit juice would be good.

"Best local brew in the area," Nikolaos grinned. "She makes a great fruit wine."

Wine? Roy sniffed the mug, which smelled a lot like the fruit punch he was used to back home but… with a distinct bite.

Nikolaos eyed him questioningly when he hesitated. "It's not that hard," he assured him. "And this isn't Amestris. We're well old enough for it here."

Point, and point. Roy didn't have to look to know his father would have turned it down, but he didn't want to insult their hosts. He shrugged and grinned at Nikolaos, and took a sip, savoring the taste, and letting it warm him. It was a very subtle drink. Half-way through he didn't feel all that different. "This is good," he acknowledged.

"Only widow Vera and some of the other women around this area make it, because some of the fruits only grow around here," Nikolaos explained as he drained his own mug. "They don't make it in big batches though, so this is all we're likely to get."

"That's probably a good thing if we're going to be any good tomorrow," Roy chuckled, savoring the drink and taking it slow. He'd slake his thirst on water. This wasn't for wasting. "Did I hear right that there's a local festival tonight?"

"A bit of one," Nikolaos nodded. "With everything going on, these little holidays seem more important somehow. This one's as close to a winter holiday as they have. It celebrates the winter season and next harvest, since they have a growing season ending soon."

"Sounds good to me." Roy watched Nikolaos. Over the past weeks he had watched the other guy a lot, especially with his sister. "Planning on dancing with Théa?"

"Well of course I-" Nikolaos stopped midsentence. "That is, if she'll dance with me."

Roy snorted. "Of course she will. Stop playing innocent, man. I know you're interested in my sister."

"I guess I'm lucky none of you threw me to the jaguar," Nikolaos chuckled, sipping his fruit wine.

"No one feeds their guide to a killer beast, unless he oversteps his bounds," Roy replied. "I don't mind you liking my sister, Nik. Théa's a great girl. Just don't do anything to make her cry if you can help it."

"What if she makes me cry?" Nikolaos asked, grinning a moment later.

Roy laughed. "Then I'll have to have words with my sister and find out who switched her brain with someone else's." Théa wasn't a heartbreaker. At least, not yet. Roy didn't point out that when they got to Creta, the Mustangs were going home to Amestris, and there was the very real possibility the two of them might never cross paths again. He was sure they knew that. And after everything they'd all been through, he'd let them have their moments.

**December 16****th****, 1971**

"Just a few more feet!" Sara shouted at the alchemists around her as the air rippled and crackled with huge amounts of alchemical energy. The new wall of Havah was quite something, but the new river-channel that brought the lava around the opposite side of the volcano –which was still slowly spurting- and down into a newly created large lake where it would hit and cool- was something else entirely. It had taken the alchemists weeks to get it set up and done, moving mountains of earth and concrete and water and practically reshaping the mountain without setting it off or destroying any more of the city.

Now it was almost finished. Just a couple of meters, and Havah wouldn't have to worry about the next eruption except for the ash. The secondary plan, one Sara had put a couple of their earth-specialized alchemists on, was to see if it would be possible to return the volcano to a dormant –preferably dead- state. But there were no promises on that one, and she hadn't told the Havah city government about it. If it worked, then they would say something.

The sloped channel-already filled with the cooling lava the alchemists were holding at speed, edged forward, and dipped into the lake.

"All right!" Sara shouted up the line. "Let it go!"

Starting at the bottom and moving upward, the alchemists controlling the lava let it loose, and it move inexorably downward until it hit the lake, and began to hiss. Steam rose for a few seconds. Then Sara turned to look at the alchemists who had created the lake –headed up by Cal. "All right, Whitewater. Let's cool this thing off!"

"Yes ma'am," Cal chuckled as he put his hands to the transmutation circle on the ground. So did the two newer alchemists with him, and the water of the lake, which had come out of a spring in the first place, swelled, and rose, and turned into a towering column rising out of the lake. Then it whirled in the air –spraying everyone with flecks of water who was standing nearby- and then slithered, snake-like, back up the line of glowing red-and-black molten rock.

Steam hissed and rose all the way up the mountain, following the water-snake to the very top of the volcano itself. Then the water form collapsed, and the water ran right back down the smooth rock slide it had just created.

"Nice work."

Cal joined her, wiping sweat and water from his forehead and grinning. "Looks like we just paved a road."

"I hope someone was taking pictures," Sara replied with a satisfied chuckle. "I think we just created a new tourist attraction."

Below, and scattered all around the edges of the volcano-turned-construction site, not only alchemists and soldiers were in evidence, but hundreds if not thousands of the populace of the city had turned out to watch what to some probably did look like a feat of magic. It certainly surpassed anything the 'magicians' of the Havah stages had ever accomplished.

Apparently it was impressive enough. As the steam settled and people could see clearly, a scattering of cheers and clapping broke out.

"Maybe we should take a bow," Cal snickered. "But all I want right now is a drink. Are we done for today, Chief?"

Sara rolled her eyes, but she didn't argue. She wanted a meal and a bath more than anything else. All that alchemy and volcanic debris made for a tired, dirty alchemist. "Yes, we're off duty. Tell everyone they get tomorrow morning off too."

"I will." Cal turned and hurried back down to where his group of alchemists was waiting. Sara, her own work not yet done, headed back down the side of the mountain to the military car that would take her back down into the city proper where she needed to check on the other teams. The others might be done, but she wasn't, not yet. Tore's team was supposed to be finishing up work on the last electrical plant. When they were done, all the wiring to the still-standing buildings in Havah would be repaired, and power restored.

Sara hoped Cal managed to get a real break. His team had already managed to fix the remaining plumbing in the city. That, she thought with some amusement, had been what made the alchemists particularly popular. Everyone was much happier with fresh water and flushing toilets.

* * *

><p>Their <em>usual<em> bar was more than a little crowded tonight, though Tore wasn't surprised given the celebratory air that had infected the city with the assurance that the volcano was no longer a danger. Fresh water, electricity, a lot of the trash and rubble cleared away. The city was coming back to life, and that safety had raised everyone's spirits.

The night and half of tomorrow off had given the alchemists renewed energy despite their exhaustive efforts as well, and they mingled happily with the locals who chose to frequent the same bar.

The first thing Tore noticed –because it was kind of hard to- was that the place was _full_ of attractive women, most of whom were flirting outrageously with any alchemist they could.  
>"Where'd all the girls come from?" Jean asked as he arrived, joining Tore and Cal as they wedged into a corner table. The place was packed!<p>

"I don't know, but it's a refreshing sight after nothing but grouchy middle-aged men," Cal chuckled.

"What would Alyse say if she heard you?" Tore scolded playfully, sipping his tequila. The place still didn't serve anything else.

"She'd roll her eyes," Cal shrugged. "But if she was here, I wouldn't see the other women here, now would I?"

"Blinded by her beauty I'm sure," Tore grinned. "Though, Charisa's prettier than any woman here." Far prettier… though he felt his mirth slipping at that thought. Months without her, and her at home, taking care of Dare and Rap and her father without him, all while working. He missed her a lot.

"I have to say, Noelle trumps them both," Jean grinned over his drink.

"We'd have to find an unbiased judge," Cal shook his head. "Which we won't find here."

"Most guys will choose redheads over brunettes," Tore pointed out. So, since Charisa was the only redhead out of the three, naturally it should follow that she'd win out.

"Is that so?"

Tore blinked and looked up… into a large pair of breasts covered by a tight sparkly blue dress. Above the chest, he found a pretty face with matching blue eyes and light brown hair, highly styled and curled hair. _So this is why everyone talks about the show girls in Havah._ "It is," he held to his original statement, grateful his voice didn't squeak as he pried his eyes away.

"Well I'm pretty sure he's right," one of her friends –this one a vibrant redhead in a similarly tight, black dress- came up behind Jean and rested a manicured hand on his shoulder. "Wouldn't you agree, handsome?"

Tore might have laughed at Jean's expression as the other man tried not to stammer and saved himself by taking a calm, _long_, sip of his tequila.

The third girl –this one in green with sparkles _and _fringe- dropped herself right into Cal's lap, her short blonde hair tickling his nose. "Nope, everyone knows blondes have all the fun!" Then she smiled at Cal. "And are very grateful to their rescuers?"

Tore was almost jealous at how calmly Cal grinned back at the girl. "We're hardly rescuers, miss. We're more like glorified construction workers."

"Oh don't be silly," the brunette sat down next to Tore and sidled up against him, uncomfortable close. It was getting warm in here…fast. "We've seen you. You alchemists and your friends are amazing."

"Nice to be counted," Jean commented glibly as the redhead's hand slid down his front and fiddled with the buttons on his jacket.

"Well you know, we thought you boys deserved a little… local thank you," the blonde purred, wrapping her arms around Cal's neck.

This wasn't happening. Seriously! Tore tried to remain cool as the brunette tried to edge herself into his lap. Under different –unmarried- circumstances, Tore would have happily taken advantage of this situation a few years back. He glanced at Cal, who still seemed far too cool in this situation. He wasn't going to accept that offer was he? It had been months since any of them had seen –or touched- their wives.

Jean looked like he might die. His normal cool was shattered.

Cal looked at the woman on his lap. "Well now…"

"Heather."

"Heather," Cal continued with a winning smile. "I do appreciate the offer, believe me, but I'm a married man."

"You didn't bring your wife did you?" Heather –the blonde- looked around, though she was clearly teasing. "She doesn't have to know."

"A _happily_ married man," Cal clarified.

"Oh, poo," Heather pouted her red lips. "That's no fun."

"What about you, tiger?" the redhead nibbled at Jean's ear.

Jean seemed to regain his composure, or at least his voice. "Sorry, miss. You don't hold a candle to my wife."

The redhead shook her head. "I think we hit the wrong table girls."

"Oh I don't know, Charlene," the brunette was smiling at Tore. "This one looks like a lot of fun. What do you say, soldier?" she asked in the thick accent that told him she was the only Aerugean-born of the three.

Tore swallowed. It was very _very_ hard to think with those breasts practically under his nose! _They're not as nice as Charisa's. They're not as nice as Charisa's._

He realized they were looking at him, and his resolve steeled even as his frustrations cried out at him for turning down a prime opportunity. "I'm a lot of fun," he replied, smiling up at her with a regretful expression. "Just ask my wife sometime."

"Told you," Charlene sighed.

Heather slid off Cal's lap and joined her friends. "Let's try those guys over there."

The three girls simply headed off into the crowd toward a group of guys who looked much rowdier, younger, and far more drunk.

Yeah, Tore was pretty sure they'd get a score out of that bunch. He happened to know they were all single. He watched the girls go, and felt a bit like a heel for the twinge of regret. _Oh, get over it. The most beautiful woman in the world is waiting at home for you with your son. _

"Anyone else feel relieved?" Jean asked, taking a long drink. "And kind of…"

"Lame?" Cal grinned. "I used to watch the older officers who'd turn down the girls and I thought they were crazy." He sipped. "And I was right."

That got Tore's attention. "What?"

"They were crazy, like a fox maybe," Cal finished the line. "For their wives."

"So you mean to tell me you weren't even tempted?" Cal, who had set Tore up in the first place, for his first time. Okay so the man was married, but did that mean he was dead?

"It's not about not being tempted," Cal shrugged. "It's about weighing the loss with the win. I'm not going to do anything to risk losing Alyse."

"How _sweet_," Jean chuckled. "Though I know what you mean."

"That, and the girls around here aren't always… clean." Cal winced as he said it and finished his drink.

Tore didn't mention that he'd heard that story. So it wasn't that they weren't tempted, they'd just done what he had. Somehow, that made Tore feel better. "Damn I miss Charisa… and Dare."

"Sucks being a family man on a long mission like this," Cal agreed, and there was a general round of agreeing nods. "I think I'm jealous of Fullmetal, and Coran too. They're only up on the border, but they've got their girls with them."

"I can see it now," Jean laughed. "Come visit rainy Havah. Food rations, nothing but tequila to drink and you hope the bathrooms flush. Discount hotel rates starting now."

Tore almost snorted tequila up his nose. "Damn it, Jean!" he coughed. It burned!

Cal looked smug. "Oh no, do that again. He's turning a fabulous shade of purple."

**December 17****th****, 1971**

"Try to avoid harming them!" the command came over the raucous shouts of the rioters crowding the gates. Picketers, signs waving, were throwing rotten fruit –what little there was this time of the season- yelled and chanted and hissed.

Heart pounding, Trisha just stared at them from the second rank of the line of Alchemists suddenly put out front to deal with them. How were they supposed to stop rioters without hurting them?

It was already a very one-sided battle with that in effect, and Trisha felt more than a little useless. While she could do most of the every-alchemist-should-know-this work her grandfather and mother had taught her, it wasn't much use when trying _not_ to destroy a city or hurt people who had no problem trying to hurt them instead to get their voices heard as they stormed their government buildings.

"How are we supposed to do that?" the alchemist beside her gasped as he brought the cobble stones of the street rattling and bouncing around the rioters' feet. Several slipped and fell, but it didn't seem to do much to break the swelling wave of angry voices.

"Heck if I know," Trisha replied, pressing one hand to the circle on the back of her glove and focusing. A huge gust of wind slammed into the crowd, but they didn't seem to notice or care as half of them were shoved over a couple of inches before the wind was broken up by the bodies. "I just know this isn't working!"

The young man – he didn't look much older than her, truth be told – wiped his forehead with one arm. Half an hour into the riot and the only thing they had accomplished was keeping the crowd from breaking down the gates. "Well we'd better come up with something fast. I don't know how much longer we can do this."

Trisha nodded. Sweat dripped from her own forehead, and not just from the heat. She couldn't blast them with wind any harder than she already was, and she doubted destroying the gate in the process of pushing them back would do much good. Besides, the earth moves weren't her strongest suit even though she could do most of them. She was better with air… and sound.

But what good was a sound when she could barely even hear their commander using the bullhorn over the roaring crowd?

"That's it!" Trisha grinned maniacally as an idea sprang to her mind. It was crazy but… well, her family always had crazy ideas. Wasn't that just how it worked?

"What's it?" The other guy turned, sweat dripping off his curly sandy brown hair.

"You'll hear in a second." Trisha backed up and then took five steps to her left to the Lieutenant Colonel holding the megaphone. "Does that thing have a sound button?" She'd heard bullhorns at sport events that made horrible, ear-splitting sounds.

"Yes, but not loud enough to be heard here. What good would it do?" The Lieutenant Colonel asked, frowning.

"Just trust me, Sir," Trisha replied, remembering belatedly that she really ought to address him with respect. But this could work! "Give me a second to set up the transmutation, and then you hit that button."

"What are you going to do… miss Heimler?" he asked again more firmly, stumbling over her lack of rank.

"Blow their eardrums given half a chance." She chuckled, then focused her thoughts and pulled out a piece of chalk. This wouldn't work with the circle on her gloves. Not yet. She'd need to make modifications later if it did. "Let me see that." She held her hand out for the bullhorn.

After a moment's hesitation, he handed it over.

Quickly, Trisha inscribed the circle on it she was sure she'd need then handed it back. "All right. Don't mar that. Just tell everyone on our side to cover their ears then hit the button on a five count."

He gave her a look that said he doubted this would work, but he nodded, and shouted into the bullhorn that exact order.

On three, Trisha's hands were on the megaphone.

On four, the transmutation began to glow.

On five, the sound that emitted from the bullhorn broke and crackled through the air with an agonizing keen that sent people staggering backwards, and drove people to their knees, hands over their ears as they shouted-

-but no one could hear them over the ongoing noise.

Trisha wasn't to cry from the pain of it herself, but she kept her hand on the bullhorn, using alchemy to manipulate the sound waves themselves to amplify them as much as the human ear could stand, and just to that brink.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Trisha staggered back, and the noise died.

The crowd wasn't moving, and several alchemists were staring at her –hands already long over their ears- with a look of mixed surprise and begrudging respect.

Well, let them chew on that for a while!

The Lieutenant Colonel shook his head… repeatedly. "I never want to hear that again," he said just a little too loudly. "But it seems to have done the job."

The mob had turned to stunned disorder as they slowly got up, and several had already run away. Now, it simply broke up as people decided they didn't want to hear that sound again.

"Dang you're something else," the other young alchemist joined her, still shaking his head a little from the blast. "Explosions going off by your head aren't that loud."

Trisha looked at him. "And you'd know that how?"

He grinned and offered her his hand. "Tanner Henson; Stone Alchemist." His brown eyes matched his cheerful smile.

Trisha took his hand and shook it. "Trisha Heimler."

"Oh I know who you are," Tanner chuckled, "If you'll forgive me for saying so. General Kane said if anything happened to you, the rest of us would have our heads."

Trisha felt her skin twitch with irritation. "And why's that?"

Tanner's smile never faded as he looked her right in the eye. "Because he said you were too damned useful to lose before you have a chance to take the Exam."


	8. Chapter 8

**December 24****th****, 1971**

"Mom! Mom! Look at this!" Eamon ran up to Lia and held up Brigitte, who was scooped up in his arms, wagging her tail with a blue-and-silver bow tied to her color. "We decorated Brigitte too!"

Lia turned around, Aeddan wiggling in her arms. "She looks very pretty." She then watched her son scamper back to where Lily, Minxia, Michio, little Kamika, and James were all working together to put a decorative garland over the fireplace and other decorations around the room to make it festive, while Gloria and Charlie watched from a play pen. Alyse, Gracia, Franz, and Will were in the kitchen keeping an eye on what promised to be a delicious meal. The only people who hadn't come yet who were expected were General Breda, Charisa, and Dare.

She had offered to have all the family holiday festivities in Central in their house this year, partially because it was always here when everyone could come, and partially because she just missed having people in the house. For once, a rare thing, the family wasn't trying to pour down to Resembool this year or vice versa. Train travel was being discouraged until the Basokaria epidemic was fully under control, and Lia certainly wasn't going to risk her children to the disease that had taken her own father, and nearly killed Ethan!

It was the continued quarantine and limited travel regulations that kept Lia from inviting her mother up for the Holidays, though they talked by phone regularly. Lia hated how her mother kept saying she was doing all right, when it was clear from her voice that her mother was alone, and heartbroken, and scared.

"Lia? Are you all right?"

Lia blinked and looked over at Ren. She hadn't realized she's zoned out for a moment. "Not really," she admitted, sighing. "I'm worried about Mom. She said she was going to have the holidays with her friends, since they're all stuck there together, but I know she's missing Dad terribly right now."

"It's always hard to spend special times without loved ones," Ren agreed with a knowing nod as she spread the table cloth out over the dining room table, then reached for the cloth napkins and started folding. "The first couple of years after my father died were very difficult for us, and not just because Mao was suddenly in line to be Emperor."

Lia knew Ren's father had been assassinated in the civil wars in Xing, but it wasn't something she thought of often, mostly because Ren almost never mentioned it. "You were very small weren't you?"

"I was three," Ren nodded. "And it was three years before Mao was safely on the throne. We couldn't go anywhere with guards, and my mother was so very sad then. Still, she put us first, and all of Xing. If I didn't hear her crying at night, I would never have known how much she missed my father. Well that and she told us," she added with a soft smile. "She told me stories about him all the time. And Mao was the best big brother I could ever have…" Then she got an amused spark in her eye. "But we were talking about you, weren't we?"

Lia had sort of hoped Ren would go on about her childhood instead. It at least took her mind off her problems. "My mother," she clarified.

"Who isn't the only one who's lonely." Ren turned to look at her evenly. "You haven't said one word about Ethan all afternoon. I know you're worried about him too, Lia. I also think you're still mad at him."

Lia froze. She hadn't told anyone else how angry she'd been when Ethan went, or why. "I didn't want him to go," she admitted softly, glad no one else was listening. "I asked him not to, but he went anyway, and he got sick, just like I was afraid he would, and right after it killed my father and…" her voice broke, and she paused, willing herself not to cry. Aeddan was giving her a funny look now. "I'm just so afraid of losing him."

Ren rested her hands gently on Lia's upper arms. "It'll be all right," she replied with a soft smile. "Ethan pulled through, didn't he? He's immune to it now, and knowing him, he's probably got some idea of how to treat it better because of it. You know how he is. If he can help people, he's not going to give up."

"I know. That's what he told me." Lia felt guilty for wanting him back home, for wanting him here, safe, to herself. But she'd almost lost him twice now. "It was just easier to handle when we didn't have a family to worry about." She had waited patiently through college, and followed him to Xing, and taken care of him and nursed him, and worried when he'd gone off to fight in the war. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised. He's an Elric, but he's never flat out refused to compromise like that before." And she'd spent the whole time he was ill feeling guilty that she'd made him feel bad about going.

"Even Will has days like that," Ren assured her. "They're passionate, caring, capable people who drive us crazy when we can't follow, because we would follow them right into adventure if we still could."

That was true. Lia sighed. "I'm trying not to be mad at him, Ren, honestly. I just wish they'd finish up and lift the quarantine."

"We all wish that," Ren assured her. "Between you and me, I'm pretty happy Will's stuck in an office now. He can't just go running off. He has papers to grade."

Lia couldn't help smiling. "But weren't you just complaining the other day about how he needs to get off his butt and out of his chair?"

Ren nodded. "True, but I still prefer his butt where I can keep an eye on it."

* * *

><p>"Are you ready to go, Dad?"<p>

Breda turned around to find Charisa peeking in the door of his room, where he'd been finishing getting dressed to head over to the Elrics' for the holiday meal. Or at least, that was what he'd finished doing five minutes ago. "Yeah. I'll just be a minute." Breda turned back to the photo of Nancy on his bureau, silently wished her a happy holiday, and turned to face his daughter.

Charisa gave him a sympathetic smile. "You know I still do the same thing sometimes."

Breda crossed the room and gave her a brief hug. "It's too bad we can't have a family holiday this year."

"Well you know Niam wasn't going to miss Denise's performance," Charisa hugged him back. "And it's not every day the Orchestra gets invited to play at the Cretan Acropolis."

"Oh I know," Breda assured her as he took a step back. Charisa looked good this evening. Of course, she always did, but tonight the dress she wore was classically stylish, in a deep burgundy. It was something Nancy might have worn. His throat tightened. "You look really lovely tonight."

"Thanks." Charisa replied. "You look pretty dashing yourself. I'd almost think you were dressing for someone special."

"Other than my daughter?" Breda asked. "No, I just don't want to look like a slob." It wasn't even all that formal, just a good pair of slacks, dress shirt and vest. "Besides, who would I dress up for?"

"Riza Mustang?"

Breda paused, startled by the contemplative look in her eyes. "What?"

"So there's nothing going on with you and Riza?"

"Where would you get an idea like that?" Breda stared at her.

Charisa's cheeks went pink with embarrassment. "You seem to enjoy spending time together, and you're both available so… people talk sometimes."

Now there was an idea! Breda barked a laugh. "That's one I hadn't heard. No, Riza and I are nothing but old colleagues and good friends. That's all we've ever been and that's all there's every likely to be, and that's the only reason I'm worried about her and Maes all the rest of Roy's family. Now put that nonsense out of your mind and don't worry about me. I don't need you to go matchmaker on me."

"Well I wasn't trying to," Charisa replied. "I just don't want you to be lonely."

"Who's lonely?" Breda asked. "I live in the same house as my daughter, her husband, a very rambunctious boy, and a cat who thinks he's supposed to be a doily. Speaking of boy, where's Dare?"

"He's feeding the fur doily," Charisa chuckled. "Let's go, Dad. It's time to party."

* * *

><p>"Uncle Ethan, are you going to leave off work and actually join the rest of us for dinner?"<p>

Ethan sat up from the microscope in front of him and glanced over his shoulder, where Reichart was standing in the door way. He glanced at the time, and realized he'd been hunched over the thing for three hours. It was getting late. "Is the mess doing anything special?" he asked curiously as he straightened up and felt his back crack in four places.

"I hear they're putting figs in the pudding," Reichart grinned. "I mean it actually. They grow all over the place around here."

"All right, I'm coming." Ethan yawned. He wasn't well enough –the other doctors insisted- to go back into the quarantined area yet, but that hadn't kept him from starting his research in earnest again. He had samples to work with now, and personal experience. "I can't be the last one off work."

"Actually, you are," Reichart assured him as they headed out of the tent and back towards camp. "Coran and Gale and Granny Winry got done almost an hour ago. Grandpa Ed and Uncle Al have been in the mess half the afternoon."

"There might not be any food left for the rest of us," Ethan laughed, wondering what they'd really been doing all day. Even his father couldn't eat for several hours straight.

"I'm not sure what they're up to," Reichart replied. Then his expression turned softer, and Ethan had a pretty good idea why.

"Missing Deanna?"

"Yes!" Reichart replied without reservation, his hand going into his pocket. Ethan wasn't surprised to see a picture come out of it. "I got this in the mail this morning, and all I can think about since then is home."

Ethan glanced at the photo. Deanna did indeed look adorable caught mid-bite of that cookie. Her pregnancy was also advancing well. "Very cute," he commented.

"Gorgeous," Reichart looked up at him as if the compliment wasn't good enough. "I know we're doing the right thing by being here, but I miss her like crazy. Grandpa and Coran are lucky that Granny and Gale are here."

"Yeah, they are," Ethan agreed. What he wouldn't have given for a chance to hold Lia in his arms and tell her he loved her, and how sorry he was that he'd worried her. It just didn't work right over the phone. The last time they'd talked, it had turned out tense, though he'd managed to avoid a quarrel.

"Oh, sorry," Reichart's expression turned more sympathetic. "I bet you miss Aunt Lia as much as I miss Deanna."

Ethan just nodded. "Lia and the kids. I've never missed a holiday with her, not in years. It's tough."

"Well, we'll make it up to them," Reichart nodded, conviction in his tone.

Ethan was saved from having to continue the conversation by their arrival at the mess, which looked… "Is that thing glowing?"

Reichart nodded, eyes wide. The entire tent, all that green canvas, was glowing! "How did they manage that?"

"We'll have to ask," Ethan said as he walked up to the tent and went inside. "Cause I think we know who the culprits are."

And if he hadn't already guessed, the interior of the tent confirmed it. Ethan wasn't entirely sure where they'd gotten the supplies, but his father and uncle had transmuted the inside of the austere military tent into as festive an environment as it was possible to have this far from a real city. What had probably once been bed sheets had been transmuted into long white sashes that draped along the walls and formed intricate bows at the top of each tent pole. Each bow clasped a spray of bright red Aerugean flowers with large, pointy blossoms. The lighting was now capped with decorative glass-works instead of the standard military issue, and every table had a tablecloth. Simple, but definitely effective. The most interesting effect, of course, was the added glow of the tent itself. Only alchemy could have made tent canvas glow in the dark.

"There you are!"

Ethan turned to spot his father, grinning broadly and with one arm around his mother's shoulders, coming towards them. "Yeah, I heard aliens had landed and had to come check it out," Ethan quipped, gesturing at the tent canvas.

"Little trick of Al's," Ed assured him. "We couldn't let the holidays go without a little something special for everyone."

"Did you manage to make the food amazing too?" Ethan asked. It certainly smelled a little better than normal.

"Oh we might have done a little…tinkering… with the menu and the cooking equipment," Ed admitted wickedly. "Nothing illegal, but it's just not the holidays without a feast."

Ethan could agree with that. He was sure they were having something delicious at home right now… and he just found himself wishing he was there instead. He shook himself. _Okay, enough sulking. You've got family here. Enjoy them and everything they've put together._ He put a smile on his face. "Great, I can't wait to taste it."

**SCENE BREAK SCENE BREAK SCENE BREAK SCENE BREAK **

"I'm never… spending a holiday… in Havah again," Cal groaned as he lay on his bed, sweating from low fever and just grateful he hadn't had to run to the restrooms in the last half hour. Dysentery; why did it have to be dysentery? He supposed he should be grateful it wasn't any of the more severe illnesses going around, but his digestive system hated him, and he couldn't remember the last time he'd felt so miserable.

"I'm not sure this qualifies as a holiday, despite the date," Tore commented hoarsely from the other side of the room, just out of Cal's view. He sniffed, and Cal heard the sound of a nose being blown. It had been a lousy couple of days for just about everyone, coming down with a run of infections brought on by the wet weather, and an influx of people from the country with produce. It was half that lovely fresh looking fruit that had been the cause of a good chunk of the dysentery cases, or so Cal surmised.

"Yeah, well… I still mean it." Cal shrugged and didn't bother to open his eyes. "Instead of cuddling up with Alyse and filling up on delicious food, I'm lying here while my stomach tries to kill me."

"At least you can breathe," Tore retorted, though it almost sounded like 'breed' he was so stuffed up.

Cal took him at his sound. "I wish," he snickered. A night at home with Alyse would have improved the situation a thousand fold. Even if he'd been sick, she'd have been here to pamper him.

"Well don't you two sound pathetic," Sara commented as she entered the room.

Cal peeked his eyes open. She was carrying a tray that smelled like mess-hall chow and a thermos and what looked like a couple of cans of orange soda. Where had she found those? "What's that?"

"Dinner, if you can keep anything down," Sara replied as she set it down on the small table between the beds. "Who knew I'd spend my holiday playing nurse-maid to have my own unit," she added with a sigh, followed immediately by a stifled cough.

"Sounds like you ought to be resting yourself, Sara." Cal didn't even bother with 'chief' or 'general.' He was too tired, and it was the privacy of his and Tore's room. He was just grateful that, like the last time they were here, the Amestrians were now put-up in one of the local hotels.

"Then who would take care of you?" Sara smirked as she opened the thermos and poured steaming liquid into three military issue cups.

"I don't suppose that's spiked…whatever it is?" Cal asked hopefully.

"Hardly. It's herbal tea." Sara set one cup down near his head, and the other by Tore's. Then she sipped the third herself, and grimaced. "Thank goodness they sugared it."

"I'm not sure I trust anything that makes you make that face."

"It will help you feel better."

"I'm game," Tore sniffled. A second later Cal heard a slurp and a "blech."

"You're not going to make me drink that are you?" Cal asked.

Sara gave him a warning look. "Don't make me pour it down your throat, Cal. You know Alyse won't thank me if you die here."

"Doc said I'm not dying."

"Doc said you should drink this."

"Shit."

Cal sat up, grimacing at the discomfort involved, but he picked up the cup, sniffed, and then downed it in one long swallow to avoid having to taste it as much as he could. It was pretty foul. The sugar didn't help much.

"Better?" Sara asked, sitting and sipping it as easily as if it were something actually tasty.

"I don't know how you can do that."

"Practice. Besides, someone has to set a good example for you lay-abouts."

"I object to that… remark," Tore grumbled.

"Yeah." Cal leaned back against the headboard. "We're at least sit-abouts."

That elicited a small chuckle out of Sara. "Listen to us. It's the winter solstice and we're sitting in here griping. Let's just be grateful we're indoors and we've got food instead of being stuck outside in all this rain."

Gratitude. "Sure, I can do gratitude," Cal replied, smiling weakly. From this angle, he could see the rest of the room. "I'm grateful the toilets work."

Tore nodded. "I'm grateful Charisa and Dare are at home, having a wonderful holiday, where it's safe, and not down here."

Now there was a sobering thought. Cal felt the same about Alyse and the kids. Living in Central spared them a lot of natural disasters and other dangers. If they had lived somewhere like Aerugo, with the coastline and the dormant volcanoes. He shuddered at the thought. "I'll second that. I'm glad our families are safe."

Sara swallowed, and Cal felt guilty. He'd forgotten that not all of their family was safe; not really.

"I'm sure Trisha's fine," Cal said.

"I am too, actually," Sara looked at him thankfully. "Kane sends me reports. She's made herself very useful he tells me."

"Sounds like another girl I've heard stories about," Cal smirked.

"Don't make me throw this at you." Sara hefted her tea cup. "I just wish we'd get word about Maes, and Elena and the others." Her expression softened.

"Yeah, me too." One way or another, Cal hated waiting, and wondering. Surely if the Mustangs were alive they'd have managed to get word out by now, wouldn't they? Or maybe not. He'd rather something had stopped them, because it meant there was a chance they had survived. They were missing, and they were a priority recovery target, but they hadn't been with the primary group of refugees fleeing the resort where they had last been reported as going. In fact, most of those people had died, though none of the survivors could report on the Mustangs' whereabouts beyond the beginning of the chaos. It just… didn't bode well.

Well, that certainly put another damper on things.

"We'll just have to keep hoping." Tore coughed.

"Aren't you the unexpected optimist," Cal smiled weakly.

Tore smiled back, and soon Sara was smiling with them.

Tore chuckled. "In this hell hole, someone's got to be."

* * *

><p>"You sure you want to do that, Urey?" Ian asked from the end of the table.<p>

Urey looked down at the last piece of chicken on the table, his fork poised over it, ready to strike.

Unfortunately, there was another fork posed to do the same thing. Across the table, Deanna grinned at him daringly as if to say 'you wouldn't take food from your pregnant sister-in-law would you?'

Urey looked at Deanna, then down at the chicken. He could beat her he was sure. No one was faster with a fork. But… he wasn't sure he wanted to have to explain to Reichart later how he didn't let Deanna have the last piece of chicken. Even if they had each eaten three pieces already. "You fight dirty," he grumbled as he pulled his fork back and settled for another roll instead.

"I'll be sure to tell Reichart you said that," Deanna grinned as she took the piece and set it on her plate. "Thank you, Urey."

Urey smiled. "You're welcome."

"Such a polite family meal," Great-Aunt Elicia chuckled from the opposite end of the table. Thanks to the travel restrictions, And Great-Uncle Al's decision to go with Grandpa Ed and Granny Winry down to Aerugo, she had been in Resembool since summer and was taking care of the Hill House while they were gone.

Urey wondered how badly she missed having the holidays with her own children, who were all in Central, safe and sound.

"Sometimes our parenting is vindicated," Cassie agreed with a chuckle.

"Hey!" Urey looked over at his mother, across the heads of Ted and Callie, pretending to feel hurt. "We have excellent table manners. Well, most of us," he amended as Ted shoveled a huge bite of cheese-covered noodles into his mouth.

Ted swallowed before responding. "What? I'm starving!"

"Seems to be going around these days," Aldon laughed. "Would you please pass me the peas, Callie?"

"Yes, Daddy," the red-headed little girl reached over and carefully passed the dish of hot buttered peas across the table.

"Thank you, sweetheart."

"Just you wait," Cassie smiled at Elicia. "The real war will begin when we bring out dessert."

"Oh I'm sure it will," Elicia replied with a conspiratorial expression.

"Oh, what's for dessert?" Urey asked curiously. He had been sent out of the kitchen after his third time trying to sneak tastes.

"Chocolate orange torte," his mother replied with an oh-so-casual shrug. "As you would know if we hadn't had to evict you."

Chocolate…orange…. Urey began to salivate. He swallowed. "You know you're the most amazing mother in the world right?"

"Elicia helped too."

Urey blushed slightly and turned to look at her as well. "Is there any way I can repay you for this heavenly delight?"

"Oh please," Ian groaned.

Urey didn't care. He hadn't had torte in ages! It was absolutely fabulous, but time consuming, and he knew some of the ingredients weren't cheap. For a taste, even a lick… he'd have done much more than beg… with all the dignity he could muster, of course.

Great-Aunt Elicia looked startled, then amused. "Well it's been a while since anyone's offered me such an extravagant thank you. Especially before tasting."

"Your cooking is always great, Aunt Elicia," Aldon pointed out. "He's just speaking from experience."

"Then the best way you can repay me, is by enjoying it and telling me if it's as good as you anticipated."

Exactly the kind of answer a real chef ought to give, Urey thought. He beamed at her. "I'd be happy to! Though you know, it may take more than one taste."

* * *

><p>"All right everyone," General Kane said as he looked around the room. "You're dismissed. Enjoy the holiday evening."<p>

That was great, Trisha thought, if you had someone to spend it with. She supposed she could just go eat in the mess. The Amestrians had been set up on the grounds of the Amestrian Embassy –just as Kane said they had done the last time they were in Aerugo, nearly twenty years before, so they had access to the building, and the mess had actually set up indoors, making use of the more extensive kitchens.

Yet somehow that just didn't seem right to Trisha. Not as a way to spend a holiday. She didn't know what her mother was doing in Havah, but with Uncle Tore and Uncle Cal there, she doubted they'd be bored. She was sure her father and James were having fun with the traditional family feasting, and the folks in Resembool were probably doing the same.

Trisha followed the rest of the alchemists out of the office, grateful they weren't assigned to one of the larger units who had to camp outside too. It was nice having a bed to sleep in again, and she even had a room to herself this time because there were enough. Not that she had minded rooming with Gayla, the only other female alchemist in the group; but it was nice to have her own space again.

"Hey, Trisha."

Startled, she looked up into the friendly eyes of Tanner Henson.

"Oh, hey Tanner," she smiled, wondering what he wanted.

Tanner smiled back. "I was wondering if you'd like to eat with me tonight. I ah, was thinking of going down into town. There's a place that doesn't care that our money's Amestrian that has some really good local cuisine, and I don't really feel like eating in the mess. It's going to be crowded and loud and, well you know how it is."

"Boy do I." Well, why not? Trisha had been looking for someone to spend the evening with, and Tanner at least was friendly. Since they'd started talking, she'd gotten used to having him around, and he was the only one around her age she could just talk to. "Yeah, I'd like that. Do we need to change?"

"Better not to," Tanner pointed out. "Uniform makes them less likely to strike at us these days. Especially since we're alchemists." Even if they didn't see the insignia, the locals had taken to leaving all the Amestrian aid alone.

"That makes sense. Okay, let's go." Trisha had her spare cash in her pocket. She was pretty sure she had enough for a meal.

"Besides," Tanner added with a broad grin as he led the way to the gates and out into the streets. "They've been giving military discounts."

Trisha laughed at that. "That sounds like something most of my family would take terrible advantage of."

"Big eaters?" Tanner asked curiously.

"Huge."

"So how come you're so thin? Umm…I mean." Tanner's face went pink. "That's not what I meant."

Trisha laughed. "Oh don't get me wrong. We're all pretty lean. I mean, most of us. It's the Elric side actually. Most of my cousins are bottomless pits, but you can't tell unless you see them eat."

"Wish I had that luck," Tanner chuckled. "I'd spent less time in the gym at HQ."

"That's what my Dad says."

"So, you're lonely huh?" Tanner asked as they made their way down a twisted city street where most of the stores were still standing, or had been repaired. Apparently this part of town had been built with earthquakes in mind. It was older than some of the newer buildings.

"I didn't say that." Trisha felt her face flush a little. "But yeah," she conceded. "I miss my family. I mean, it's winter solstice and I'm not with any of them. None of the rest are alone. Mom's in Havah with two of my uncles, and Grandpa and Granny and a bunch of my cousins are at the border. Everyone else is home or in Resembool… and I'm here. Wondering when I'll see them again." Or_ if_ she would see Roy again. There was still no word at all about what had happened to Roy's family. There were even mixed reports as to whether or not they had made it off the beach before the tsunami hit, despite the fact they had several minutes' warning.

"Sorry to hear it."

Trisha nearly jumped when Tanner put his arm around her shoulder and gave her a brief hug before letting her go. "Oh, I'll survive," she assured him, trying not to blush deeper and grateful for the falling dark. "What about you? Who do you miss?" she asked, hoping to steer the conversation in a direction less personal for her.

Tanner looked away for a moment. Was he blushing now? He sure looked like it. "I miss Melanie," he replied after a moment.

"Who's Melanie?" Trisha asked when the silence stretched out enough she was pretty sure his thoughts had gone elsewhere.

"My girlfriend," Tanner admitted, then looked back at her. "Oh, sorry! Man I'm an idiot. I've never mentioned her have I? I hope you don't think I'm-"

"No, no!" Trisha's surprise turned to laugher and relief. "I'm, relieved actually. You're a really nice guy, but I have a boyfriend."

"Okay, well that's good." Tanner relaxed again. "Yeah. Melanie and I well… we've been together for a couple of years and I… damn I miss her. I thought about proposing before I left but the time wasn't quite right and then this came up and… now I'm stuck down here and she's in Central."

"Has she written you?" Trisha asked curiously.

"Yeah." Tanner nodded as he stopped and looked around. "Here we go," he gestured to the little mom-and-pop looking restaurant. "Best Aerugean I've ever had."

Trisha felt her heart twinge. "Sounds great." She followed him inside and they took one of the empty tables. It wasn't very crowded but then given it was a holiday Trisha supposed she should be glad it was open at all.

She looked at the menu, grateful she could read in Aerugean. Even though her grasp of the language wasn't fantastic, she spoke it pretty well after spending years with the Mustangs. She ordered and then settled in. "So, you were talking about Melanie."

Tanner's blush was much more noticeable in the bright fluorescent lights. "Yeah. She's written me a couple of times, and I know she misses me. I just worry. I mean, I've never been gone this long. Up until now my missions have been fairly boring actually. Shoring up anything made of rock for the city or within a couple of days of Central. Not a lot of combat either despite all the training we get. Now I'm down here for months and okay, yeah, I'm a little concerned."

"Why?" Trisha asked. "I mean, really. You said you want to marry her. So why are you worried?"

Tanner rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. "Well let's just say I don't trust the last guy not to make a move, and it took her forever to get over him."

Aha. "So you've been writing her back right?"

"Of course I have," Tanner looked mildly offended. "Every chance I get."

"And you've told her how you feel? I mean, about being apart?"

"Well, sort of. I don't want her to worry too much, you know?" Tanner replied.

Trisha nodded. Of course not. "You should tell her. Not that you're worried about her ex, but how much you miss her and want to be with her. You don't have to outright propose in a letter." That should be done in person. "But make her feel like she's the one thing making all this worth it, because you know she'll be there when you come home."

"Really?" Tanner looked at her with a mix of contemplation and speculation. "I mean it's true but… she'd want to hear that stuff."

Trisha couldn't help smiling. "I'm a girl. I'm telling you, yes, she needs to know she's that important. You make her feel what you're feeling, and you've got nothing to worry about."

Tanner took a sip of his soda. "Does your boyfriend make you feel that way?"

Trisha stopped, and nodded, forcing words past her tightened throat. "Yeah… he does."

"I'm sorry. I've said something wrong haven't I?"

"What? No," Trisha shook her head. "I'm just worried about him. His family was on vacation South of here, on the ocean front when the Earthquake caused that tsunami and, and we haven't heard anything since then."

"Oh, shit… sorry." Tanner winced. "I mean wow, that's awful. So did you come down here to find him?"

"Not really, though I sort of hoped I might hear news faster this way," Trisha admitted. "I wanted to help. I mean half my family came down here and Roy and his whole family are missing. I couldn't just sit at home and try and focus on school work in classes I mostly sleep through anyway. I told my parents I was coming."

"And they didn't try to stop you?" Tanner looked impressed.

"Oh Mom didn't like it," Trisha chuckled. "But my Dad talked to her into it."

"I didn't think anyone could make Twilight change her mind," Tanner admitted, looking a bit dumbfounded.

Trisha smiled. "Well Dad's pretty good at it, and I am her daughter. I can make my own case." She sipped her iced tea. "I think half the reason she let me come though was because by assigning me to a unit, she figured I wouldn't do what she did and just run off and join the military."

"So that story's true?" Tanner asked eagerly. "Oh sorry, I guess I shouldn't ask you to rat out General Heimler. I mean, she's your mother, but there are a lot of stories and most of us new guys don't know if half of them are true."

Trisha chuckled. "Well I can tell you that one's true, at least in the essence. But I probably shouldn't tell too many, or she'll never forgive me later."

"We can't have that," Tanner chuckled. "So why don't we swap stories about something safer, like siblings, instead?"

Trisha smiled, and took a good whiff as the waiter returned and set down their food. That smelled fabulous! "Stories about James I think I can handle."

* * *

><p><em>Author's Note: 1219/2011 Happy holidays to anyone celebrating any of the many wonderful winter holidays that fall around this time of year! Most happily, the Amestrian holiday chapter fell this week, even though I didn't time it that way on purpose._


	9. Chapter 9

**January 1****st****, 1972**

"This is criminal," Cal grumbled as he stepped back from the newly re-transmuted wall in front of him. With the rubble hauled away, and replacement supplies brought in, the work rebuilding the walls of Havah was going much faster than a lot of the ongoing work on the interior. Part of the city had been entirely scrapped, and that scrap was being used to rebuild, or thrown out. Though if it could be recycled through transmutation then that was what they did with it.

"I feel like a member on a chain gang," Tore agreed, wiping sweat from his face on his sleeve. "But at least we're almost done here. City's functional. Hospitals working; critical utilities are up and the streets are cleared. Not much more need for us."

"Just to build a stupid wall," Cal laughed. "They should've brought Fullmetal and True Soul down here for this. They'd have had it done in minutes."

"At least you can transmute it into place!" Jean bellowed from a few yards off where he was one of the regular soldiers shoveling piles of rubble into place for the alchemists to use.

"Not like it takes any less energy!" Cal retorted as he adjusted his pants and reluctantly pulled his belt a hole tighter. "Damn, when I get home 'Lyse is going to take one look and start stuffing me till nothing fits the other way."

"And that's a bad thing?" Tore asked skeptically as he started repairing the worn transmutation circle on the ground that had gotten scuffed up.

"At this point?" Cal smirked. "I'm hungry enough right now to let her." If he got any leaner he was going to have to start adding notches on his belt to make it even smaller, or risk losing his uniform pants mid-mission, probably in front of superior officers, and how would that look for a Colonel?

"Then she'd better start baking now," Tore replied, "Tell her to mail it express, or we'll all be nothing but sticks by the time we get home."

Cal shook his head and moved forward to the next section of wall in need of repair. He started drawing. "Don't I wish I could?"

**January 10****th****, 1972**

Maes had never been so happy to see border guards. Especially not foreign border guards! The site of the Cretan border was enough to make him pick up the pace, well aware that it would put him at the gates fairly well ahead of his slow-traveling family. That was fine. It could take a while to convince them to let them through.

Or at least, that was what he thought until Nikolaos gave a shout of :Uncle Horatio!: and ran forward.

One of the Cretan guards squinted at them in the dappled sunlight coming down through the trees, and then his smile brightened. :Nikolaos! We thought you were dead, boy!:

By the time Maes and the rest of the family caught up with Nikolaos, he was babbling away in rapid Cretan, explaining the entire story. Maes caught most of it, but finally gave up trying to follow what turned into a rather complicated conversation until it clearly turned to a conversation about them.

:Mustang?: Horatio looked up at them sharply. He looked at Maes, then at Riza. :You are _the_ Mustang family?:

Apparently there were Flame Alchemist fans down here too. Maes nodded and stepped forward, offering the guard his hand. :Maes Mustang, and my mother, Riza, my wife Elena, and our children.:

Horatio nodded, shaking Maes' hand, then shouted towards the guard house. :Hey, Georg! We have the Mustangs here, and they're all alive!:

"I take it they've been looking for us?" Roy asked with an amused expression.

Nikolaos turned to them and nodded, smiling. "Apparently the Amestrian government has been desperately trying to find out where you are and if you survived. Even the Aerugean government has notices out for anyone who can report on your whereabouts."

:Please, come in, come in,: Horatio gestured towards the building that sat on the border. It was odd to see such a modern structure in the middle of the trees, but Maes wasn't arguing. It looked like real civilization! :Nikolaos tells quite a story! Poor Engelo.: He shook his head sadly. :I am so glad you're alive. Thank you for taking care of my nephew.:

:Nikolaos is the one who deserves praise,: Maes argued. :We wouldn't have made it through without him.:

:He's quite a remarkable young man,: Horatio agreed as they went inside. The main area looked like what it was, a business area for checking to make sure anyone coming through was on legitimate business, check passports and luggage and anything they might be selling. There was a desk, several chairs, a restroom, and a potted plant.

Maes guessed that the second story was where the guards actually slept. :What do you need from us?: he asked as Elena, Théa, Riza, and Rochelle headed straight for the restroom. :I'm afraid we have very little identification outside of mine.: He reached for his wallet. He thought his mother might have had hers on her, but that was it.

:Don't worry about it,: Horatio shook his head. :We were given very good descriptions of you, right down to the dogs,: he added with a chuckle, gesturing towards Riza's dogs, who were now sitting in a military-rigid line by a chair. They needed baths, but looked otherwise fine. :We have a phone,: he added. :As soon as you have a moment, we need to call in to report that you are alive and well. I expect my superiors will want to speak with you, and possibly put you through to the capitol. President Argyros will be very pleased to hear that you are all alive and well. You are all well yes?: he asked then. :We have heard severe reports of illness from the refugees on the Amestrian border and inland, but we've had only a few dozen refugees come out this far, and none from your direction. They were all healthy.:

:We are now,: Maes assured him. :My youngest daughter fell ill, as did Nikolaos, but we were treated by a Doctor as I'm sure Nikolaos has told you. Though if you have a place we could rest, Rochelle is still a bit weary and my wife is expecting.:

It was still strange to think of that fact, but it felt even odder to say it!

Horatio grinned. :Well things may be a bit crowded, but you are welcome to rest here. If they need it, there is a spare bed in the back room. But if you'll allow us to arrange for a couple of cars, there's a hotel up the road in Periga. We were told if found, the government should put you up on its expense until we arrange for your transportation home.:

Wow that was… far more than expected. :Thank you,: Maes replied with a fervence he hadn't felt in some time. :This means so much to me…to my family.:

:Please, think nothing of it,: Horatio smiled. :I know how you feel.:

* * *

><p>"Dad! The phone's for you!" Charisa yelled across the house.<p>

"I'm coming, I'm coming," Breda grumbled as he made his way out of the bathroom, down the hall, and into the living room. "You don't have to shout. How important can it be anyway?"

Charisa was smiling almost too happily. "Oh, not very. Just your 'old colleague and very good friend" on the phone calling.'"

His… Breda grabbed the receiver and stuck it to his ear. "Riza?"

"No hello first?" Riza Mustang's rich voice chuckled on the other end of the line. "Hello, Heymans. Have I got a story to tell you when we get home."

"I bet," Breda replied, regaining his tongue. "I'm just glad you're alive. How are you? What about Maes and Elena and the kids? What happened to you guys? Half of Amestris is going crazy trying to find out where you've been or if you were dead or not!"

"I'm well aware of that," Riza replied, sounding rather tired. "To make a very long story short, we followed a knowledgeable guide off the beach with a tsunami on our heels, got tracked in the jungle by a man-eating jaguar that we had to kill after it ate one of our guides, nearly lost Rochelle to a rare jungle disease, spent weeks tromping through tropical rainforest, and are now sitting comfortably in a hotel in southern Creta running up a huge tab courtesy of the Cretan government. Which reminds me, before we get off, please remind me I need the number for Rehnquist's office and the Elric Clinic."

"Well sure," Breda replied. He understood the need to call the President, but he wasn't sure why Riza wanted to talk to Renxiang. "Wow, that's quite a story even just in summary. I'm glad you're all right. We've been pretty worried. How are the dogs?" Okay so he was babbling, but it was from relief more than anything else. Breda was tired of losing friends and people close to him.

Riza laughed at that. "My dogs? Since when do you care about my dogs, Heymans? Well, they're just fine, thank you. Yelke's still a ways from having her pups, and I think we'll be home before then. Why, do you want one?"

Breda shuddered. "No, no thanks. I'm glad they're okay."

"I should go. This is a very long-distance call," Riza apologized. "Can I get those numbers, Heymans?"

"Oh right." Breda rattled off the number for Rehnquist's office and the Clinic from memory –wincing at the fact that he actually had them both memorized. "Any idea when you'll be home?"

"They're arranging transportation for us to get back by train as soon as possible," Riza replied. "I'm sure it will be a couple of weeks just to cover the distance. We're not in a huge rush, but I know everyone's eager to get home, including me."

"Yeah well, you'll have to tell me the full story when you get here," Breda insisted. Especially the part about being tracked by and killing a man-eating jaguar. Only Riza could say that so calmly.

"Oh I will," Riza replied me. "But only if you buy me lunch. It's going to take quite a while in the telling."

"Deal."

"Take care, Heymans. See you soon."

"See you."

When Breda hung up the phone Charisa was still smiling, though now he knew why. The Mustangs were alive and well. It was an immense relief! "Why do you look smug?" he asked suspiciously.

Charisa shrugged as she turned and left the living room. "Oh, no reason."

**January 11****th****, 1971**

"Doctor Elric? Phone call."

Ethan blinked and looked up from where he had been researching/napping on his notes. "Thanks, Greg."

"You're not working yourself sick on us again, are you Doc?" the dark-skinned male medic asked with a chuckle.

"No, no." Ethan stretched and yawned. "Quite the opposite actually." If he didn't keep falling asleep on his notes, maybe he'd have gotten this thing figured out by now. "All right, I'm coming. Who is it?" He half-hoped it might be Lia, though he doubted it. She was still at work at this hour.

"Your partner, Ren."

Ren was calling him? Well it had to be important then. Maybe an issue with a patient. Ethan picked up the pace and soon arrived at the communications station. "Hello, Ren?"

"Hi, Ethan! Wow you sound tired. Have you been getting enough sleep?" Ren's cheerful voice asked.

"Very funny," Ethan chuckled dryly. "Seriously, what's up? I appreciate the call and the concern, but you must have an important reason for calling."

"Maybe I just miss the sound of your voice around the place," Ren suggested. "Actually, I got a very interesting call last night that you need to hear about."

"Oh, who was that from?"

"Riza Mustang."

Ethan picked up his jaw and found a grin splitting his face. "Mrs. Mustang's alive? What about-"

"They're all alive," Ren cut him off with a laugh. "But that's not why I called, though it's good. News should be hitting Aerugo sometime today. Anyway, you can spoil it later. She called me because there's a doctor out in the boonies she thinks may have the answers you need to cure basokaria!"

That time Ethan almost dropped the phone. "How? Who?"

"Calm down, Ethan. I've got the information. She's out in the middle of nowhere in Karmin village. You have a pen?"

"I will in a minute!" Ethan scrambled, feeling in his pockets before he found a stub of a pencil and a scrap of notepaper. "All right. Spit it out!" As soon as she started talking he started scribbling notes about the doctor, the location so he could find it on a map, the specific herbs this Cretan boy had used on Rochelle Mustang and all of them when they got sick and everything he and the doctor had apparently shared about the ones specific to the region. This was just what he'd needed! He could feel it! The ingredients missing in his attempts to create a cure or a vaccine. With this… he might soon have both! At least, if he could get this woman on a phone. "That's fantastic!" he gasped when Ren finally finished. He looked down at the notes. They could have been sheets of gold-leaf and he wouldn't have felt them worth more than the words he saw there. A recipe for success in the making! "Thanks so much, Ren."

"Thank Riza and the Mustangs," Ren replied. "They went through a lot to get out, and one of the first calls Riza made was to me to make sure you could have that information when they heard how serious the outbreak was."

"I'll thank them too." When he saw them again, though it was a huge relief to know they were all right. "Sometime. Anything else I need to know?"

"Just that everyone misses you so you'd better get that plague cured and get your rear end back here?" Ren suggested.

"Did you just say 'rear end' in conversation, Your Highness?" Ethan teased. It felt so good to hear from her.

"Yes I did, and if you don't do as I say I'm going to come down there and drag you back up here quarantine or not."

Ethan was surprised at the vehemence in that statement, until it occurred to him why it was there. "You've been talking to Lia, haven't you?"

"I do tend to talk to all my friends," Ren replied a little more kindly. "I know you're working as fast as you can, and obviously the work is important. What could be more important right now? I agree. Just don't get too caught up in it all right?"

Ethan smiled. "I won't. Thanks, Ren. It was good to hear from you."

**January 15****th****, 1972**

Traveling north was a lot slower than the trip south almost straight into Havah. Not that Tore minded all that much, except that he was eager to get home. He understood that the work done in Havah needed doing elsewhere, and their unit was covering the towns that ran along the rail lines. So they stopped and spent a partial day here, a day there, and the damage grew less the further North they went.

The downside was, with the quarantine still in effect, and the winter harvests a shambles in half the country, food was becoming scarce, and rationing meant everyone had to take what they could get and be grateful; even the State Alchemists and the other folks offering aid.

So Tore wasn't entirely certain he was hallucinating as he looked around at the warehouse he stood in, which appeared to be full of crates marked as containing wines and tequila… and chocolate! "Am I dreaming?"

"If you are, don't wake me either," Cal commented from beside him.

"I don't think that's everything in here," Jean commented from closer to the door. "This crate's not edible. It's weapons."

"It looks like we found a stash of contraband," Sara nodded as she joined them. "Anything they can sell on the black market that might have value."

"Chocolate and wine?" Tore asked skeptically.

"Well we want it, so why not someone else?" Cal pointed out. "Especially if it's something that might become scarce. I bet Aerugean chocolate and alcohol prices are going to go up like crazy until the economy recovers. Firearms kind of speak for themselves, though I don't like what it says about whoever thinks they can sell them, and who to."

"Civil unrest," Sara shrugged. "Same old story in Aerugo. Given the orders we're working under, I think we're going to have to confiscate the lot of it. A shame really. We should check the other warehouse behind this one."

"All right," Cal agreed. "Shock, Coldstone, come with me."

Tore and the other alchemist followed Cal out of the building, though Tore laughed at himself for feeling regret at leaving that much chocolate behind. His stomach growled in complaint. Breakfast had been small –for an active alchemist- and a long time ago.

There was something wrong with the second warehouse as soon as Tore laid eyes on it, but it took him a moment to place what it was.

The warehouse didn't outwardly look all that different from the other but it smelled… fetid, like refuse. "Augh," Tore grimaced.

"Shh." Cal motioned for him to be quite as they moved closer. "I think we shouldn't go in shooting."

"That might be good," Tore whispered back, "Since we aren't carrying guns."

They didn't go around to the front either. The windows were high, and there was nothing stacked up against them like the other buildings either. Also strange.

Tore was getting a nasty suspicion about the place. "Hey," he tapped Cal's shoulder. "Boost me up."

Cal turned, and shrugged and knelt. Tore got a good brace and Cal boosted him up to the window.

Peering through the grime, Tore almost lost his stomach at the site below. People… dozens of them, crammed in and chained. "Let me down," he whispered frantically.

Cal brought him down. "Well?"

"They're trafficking in humans," Tore replied, still feeling nauseated at the very idea. Of course, his uncle had tried to sell his mother, so should he really be surprised? It didn't make it any easier to swallow. "We've got to get them out of there."

"We should get back-up," Coldstone commented.

Cal nodded. "Maybe we should go in ready to shoot after all. Get Jean's unit and bring them over. We've got to do this right or they may start killing."

Tore and Cal stayed there, in case anyone came or tried to do anything with the hostages. It felt like forever, but a few minutes later the Coldstone alchemist returned with Jean Stevens and ten more armed Amestrian soldiers.

"What's the plan?" Jean asked as he joined them.

"Shock, Coldstone and I will go in first," Cal told him. "If there's no one inside who's hostile, we'll start freeing the prisoners. If they start shooting, we'll defend ourselves and you guys take them out… without hitting anyone who's innocent of course."

"Of course, no problem," Jean quipped. "How many are we rescuing?"

Cal glanced at Tore.

"At least three dozen that I could count." Tore didn't want to know what they were being sold for; he could guess well enough, and he doubted it was for alchemical subject testing.

Simple enough, as long as the right people did the shooting and only the right people got shot in the end. Ideally there would be no gunfire.

Tore followed Cal around to the front. They sent Coldstone around to the back.

"Ready?" Cal mouthed as they got ready to pop the lock on the rusting chains on the door.

Tore nodded, and quickly sketched an alchemy circle on the lock itself. Then, with a zap of alchemical energy, he forced the lock into the open position, and it fell to the ground with soft thud.

Together, they hauled open the door and jumped inside, hands gloved and ready to attack as needed.

It was like turning the light on a cave full of bats. Dozens of haunted wide-eyed faces stared at them in shock.

For a second, nobody moved.

For another second, Tore thought they were going to get off easy.

:Who are you?: A dirt-covered man holding a rifle stepped out of the shadows. :What do you want?:

Not 'get out of here.' Of course, Tore thought, there was no way that the guy was going to let them leave, not seeing what he had in here and when he realized the two guys standing in the blinding daylight glare from outside weren't his compatriots, let alone Aerugean.

:We're here to make a deal,: Cal barked in what was actually a surprisingly good Aerugean accent. :I was told this was the place. Or should I take my money elsewhere?:

The man slowly lowered his weapon, just a little. :Pondarez?:

Tore tensed, but Cal didn't seem fazed a bit. :Yeah. But you're not who I was expecting,: he barked back, as if insulted at being met by a low peon.

:Ramirez had business to take care of,: the other man replied, his voice slightly hesitant. :He told me to be here in his place.:

:Well he's a lousy judge of character,: Cal spat back. :Let's just get this over with shall we? Is the price still the same?:

::Do you have the money?:

Trembling or not, the other guy had guts, Tore had to give him that much.

:You insult me,: Cal growled. :Of course I do. Is this the lot of them? You're not hiding any elsewhere are you? Ramirez promised me the lot of them.:

:No no, they're all here,: the other guy babbled back. :I swear! Count them. All forty are here.:

Forty!

Cal looked around, as if he was counting. Tore guessed he probably was, and he did the same. Yes, there were forty if he looked close enough. A lot of them were women and children. He shuddered, and tried not to think of any that had been sold off before they got here.

:They're not in as good a shape as I was told,: Cal replied condescendingly.

_Damn it. Don't push the guy too far. _Tore watched as the Aerugean tensed, and glowered.

:They're in better than most!: he retorted. :Now pay up.:

:Not until I've inspected them more closely.: Then, while Tore watched in dismay, Cal moved forward into the dim light of the place and out of the glare.

As soon as he could see Cal's fairer skin and light hair, the man's gun came right up again. :You're not Pondarez!:-

-and he slumped over as the Coldstone alchemist clubbed him on the back of the head with a piece of wood. He didn't move.

"You call that alchemy?" Cal asked with a look of amusement.

Coldstone shrugged, and grinned. "No, but it worked. You try finding a good surface to draw a circle in this place."

"Gloves," Cal held up his hands. "They're all the fashion. Get yourself a pair. But after we get these people freed. Come on."

And that was it? Tore turned and went back to the door. "Stevens, send half your men in to help us unchain these people. Preferably anyone who speaks Aerugean. They're pretty terrified. Keep the rest out here in case this Pondarez guy shows up for real, or a guy named Ramirez, who apparently owns the business."

"We've got it," Jean promised.

When Tore turned around, the two other alchemists were already speaking to some of the elders in the room as they unlocked chains. It was a heartbreaking but not surprising story about poorer people, trickling in from the small destroyed villages, getting scooped up by city human traders and rounded up, stuffed in hot trucks and shuffled halfway across the country towards they never did know where.

Tore busied himself using his little trick to break open the pitiful locks on the chains and cuffs holding some of the women and children to the walls. As he unlocked them, several stammered thank yous, mostly in Aerugean, though one or two tested their Amestrian. Tore smiled at all of them, though his heart ached. If it had been Dare here, or Charisa, he'd have killed someone already. It had happened to his mother. He still hadn't forgiven the Drachman alchemist who bought her, or his uncle who had sold her in the first place. The older he got, the less he minded having not forgiven.

Jean's men handled the rest of it in quick time, and they helped the people out of the warehouse into the light. In full day, they really did look worse. Ragged, underfed, many with sores or ill. Some said they had been captives for days, others weeks. A couple of the older men had been there for months, un-bought and barely fed.

"I've arranged to get them to the nearest hospital," Sara said when she finally had a moment to join the group. She looked utterly disgusted. "I can't believe some people. If I ever see these Pondarez or Ramirez guys, I'm going to teach them a lesson."

"Not if I get to them first," Tore replied, having to forcibly unclench his teeth. "The only lesson they deserve is a long, painful death."

"Or forty consecutive life-sentences in a prison cell," Cal suggested as he came up. "Don't worry. We've got a snitch now. I doubt that guy will have any problem singing when he comes around, and the authorities will get to the bottom of this." He gestured over his shoulder as the Aerugean soldiers who had recently arrived. "So, Twilight," he turned to Sara. "What are they doing with the rest of the contraband?"

"Well they've confiscated the weapons, and some illegal plant life," Sara replied with a grimace. Then she smiled. "However, as a thank you for helping them make a break on this human smuggling ring case, they've given us all the consumables in the other warehouse as a thank you."

All of the…. Tore's mouth started drooling again. "So does that mean we're having wine and chocolate for lunch?"


	10. Chapter 10

**January 20****th****, 1972**

"It'd say it's going to seem quiet around here, except it's not, and if I do say it, we'll get inundated with something else," Ed commented with a soft chuckle as he watched the small parade of vehicles making its way out of the tent city and down the road.

The Aerugean government had declared several of the towns in the northern and central portions of the country safe for full re-habitation, and many people who were able were going home however they could get there. It didn't matter if it was a little not-much-of-anything village in the country, it was home.

Ed could relate to that.

"Good thing you're not saying it," Al agreed with a chuckle. "And you're right. There's enough sick and injured left to keep things interesting for a while."

"Not the way Ethan goes on about things," Ed replied with a hopeful smile. When Ethan was sure he could find a solution for something, he pretty much always turned out to be right. After all, he'd managed to make a painkiller that Ed could take after he was rendered unable to use any opiate-based medication. "The way he talks about this new medication he's working on, they'll have no reason to keep folks quarantined for much longer."

"I hope that's true," said Al. "It would make a lot of people happy."

"At least they're loosening up the travel restrictions a little." The cases in South City had been arrested he'd heard. While several hundred people had come down ill, and nearly four dozen had died, there hadn't been any new cases on the Amestris side of the border in nearly a month. Ed had heard that there was finally travel moving freely in the rest of the country, though trains going north and south still had to cross through carefully monitored health and inspection stations. But they were allowing civilian aid to leave if they wished, and several hundred people out of the tens of thousands who had mobilized had taken them up on the offer, though the number was surprisingly small. "It's good that Art's going home."

Al grinned. "Yeah, Elicia said Deanna's more than ready for him to come home."

"That's how it should be," Ed agreed. "I know he's happy to go home. When I went to check on him earlier, he was singing while he was packing."

"That's happy all right."

Ed glanced over at his brother. "So, why aren't you going home, Al? I bet Elicia'd be singing if she knew you were coming back."

"Oh I talked to her about it already." Al surprised him. "She agreed I should stay here. After all, somebody's got to keep an eye on you."

Ed looked away, feeling slightly irritated. All this time, and they still teased him! "Winry's here," he pointed out.

"Yeah well, keeping an eye on you has always been a two person job," Al ribbed him. "That, and as awful as this whole situation is, taking it on with you…well I'm enjoying it. It reminds me of some of our earlier missions, where all we did was good."

Ed couldn't argue with that. It was part of why he had stayed so long as well, aside from the fact that as long as Winry was down here, he had no intention of being anywhere else. "It is like that," he agreed. "Thanks, Al. I'm glad you're here."

* * *

><p>Ethan was beginning to hate the phone.<p>

"_What do you mean you're not coming home?"_ Lia asked incredulously on the other end.

Ethan winced. "I'm sorry, sweetheart. The cure's not done yet. I just need a little more time to-"

"Can't you work on it here?" Lia cut him off. She was shouting now. "You're not in quarantine anymore. Come home! Let Ren help you with it. You could just-"

"Lia!" Ethan shouted into the phone to cut her off. She stopped. "Look," He sighed. "I have to be here. I need to be where the patients are. Even once I think I've got the compounds right, we have to test them, and then make adjustments, and do more tests. We have to make sure they aren't going to hurt the patients or have dangerous side effects. It's just not that fast a process no matter how quickly we move, and this is fast for a trial like this!"

"And it doesn't require alchemy?"

"Well… no," Ethan replied, momentary thrown off by the question. "I mean, not to mix the compound properly, though it's definitely faster and more accurate. It's just that-"

"So why does it have to be you?"

Ethan growled audibly in exasperation. "Because it's _my_ research! I'm the only one who can implement it and knows what changes might need to be made." Not one-hundred-percent true, but it was a whole lot faster than explaining it all to someone else before it was near the functional stage.

"Couldn't you have another doctor handle some of this?"

"Lia, it's not like I like being down here," Ethan pointed out. "I just have to do this. Someone's got to and this time that someone is me. I can't leave now. I'd be abandoning the entire operation and dozens of patients. It's a cure Lia, and a vaccine! You should know how important that is." He swallowed. "If we'd had this before…"

"Don't even bring Daddy into this!" Lia shouted into the phone. "You're just trying to use his death to get me to accept that you don't want to come home yet. You want to see this through even though you _could_ take the time to explain it to another experienced doctor. There are dozens of them down there, Ethan. Lots of them with more experience than you have. Well fine! _Stay down there!"_

"Lia! I di- Lia?"

The line was dead.

Ethan hung up the phone, a feeling of aching dread mingling with his anger. He walked back outside.

"Are you all right, sir?" A private standing outside asked him as he passed.

Ethan nodded. "I'm fine. Phone line just cut out on me."

"That's bad luck, sir."

"Yeah, tell me about it."

* * *

><p>Ed was surprised when he entered the dining hall to see a familiar blond pony-tail in one corner. The place was almost empty given the late hour, but he'd been feeling in the mood for a hot drink, and that, at least, they were allowed to come in and get for themselves after hours. Ed fetched himself a cup of coffee and dropped down next to Ethan on the bench without a second thought. "Hey, there. I'm almost surprised to see you," he chuckled. "At least, without your nose in your notes."<p>

Ethan sat, staring down into his mug of coffee, which looked like it was going cold given the low wisps of steam compared to Ed's, which was dumping steam like a fog bank. "Yeah," he replied, and took a sip.

"Something wrong?" Ed asked, taking a closer look at his son. Ethan's reaction had not been at all what he expected, and his son looked tired, and drained. "You're not getting sick again?"

Ethan shook his head. "Nope."

These monosyllabic apathetic answers were not getting them anywhere. "Then what's wrong?" Ed pushed. "Problem with a patient?"

"No more than usual," Ethan informed him, taking another long, slow sip of his coffee. Then he closed his eyes and just sat.

Ethan was acting more than a little off. Alarm bells were going off in Ed's head but it took him a moment to figure out why… just a whiff of something in the air.

Ed almost choked on his own coffee when he recognized it. "Is that _rum_ in your coffee?" Ethan? The boy'd had part-of one beer in his life and it sent him to the_ hospital_.

"So what if it is?" Ethan scowled and sipped again. "It's just a shot."

"How long have you been working on that cup of coffee?"

"Half an hour."

Ed felt a momentary panic ease in his chest. "Sorry, you scared me. Now talk, and I'm not leaving you alone until you do." If Ethan was drinking _anything_ potent, Ed wasn't sure he wanted to leave him alone at all.

Ethan stared into his coffee for another long minute. "I had another fight with Lia over the phone," he admitted softly. "About the usual things… me being down here, my research. She wants me home. I _know_ that but…"

"But you've got to do what you've got to do." Ed knew that feeling…and that mantra. It was a pretty good summary of most of his decision making for a large portion of his life. Not that he expected Lia was happy with that right now. He knew better.

"It's not fair," Ethan grumbled. "But then…it's not even about what's fair. This was about thousands of sick, possibly dying people, and the thousands more who can be saved, and hundreds of thousands who might never get basokaria because this cure, and the vaccine if I get it developed, will make it so they're safe. Mothers won't die. Children won't t die. Brothers, fathers, grandmothers… It's about saving lives, Dad. But… she's not entirely wrong either."

"About what?"

Ed didn't have to ask twice.

"About it being about the research. It's _my_ work, damn it! I have the right to see it through to the end and make sure that it's done right. I'm not sure anyone else can do it, even though someone probably could but… But what if they didn't? How can I possible trust someone else with something that I'm not even entirely sure of yet? I know it can work! But it's not right yet and… and I just can't go home yet. Not now." He rested his head in his hands, elbows braced on the table. "Not yet."

Ed put a hand on his son's shoulder. He knew this pain. He'd been there. Hell, he'd had this fight. "Then stay, and do your work. Lia and the kids are safe in Central. She's mad, but she'll forgive you. Just, make sure you tell her you're sorry, and acknowledge that she was right too. Preferably before you get back and she decides to shoot you on sight," he added the last with a wry smile.

"Gee, thanks." Ethan sighed heavily. "But you're right. I know that. I might have apologized on the phone too, if Lia hadn't hung up on me."

"She hung up on you?"

"Yeah. I've never heard her so angry… or hurt." Ethan reached for his coffee. "God, Dad. I never wanted to hurt her."

In a moment of agony, Ed remembered a rather painful drunken night in Aerugo, in Bueáire, nearly twenty years ago. It wasn't that bad yet, but he could see here a subtle reflection of that situation. "You didn't do it on purpose," he reiterated more gently. "We never do," he added, more inclusively. "But when you love a lot, you're going to get a little hurt. Just don't let it come between you."

Something in his voice must have given him away. That or Ethan was just being his perceptive self, because he looked over at Ed with an odd expression that turned slowly to comprehension. "That's the last thing I want to do."

"I know. You told me that, a long time ago." Ed sighed and sipped his own un-altered coffee. "And I promised you, and your mother, that I'd do my best to fix things. I'd like to think I've done a pretty good job."

"You have, Dad." Ethan smiled back. It wasn't a big smile, but it was a start. "A really good job. Though, now that I know a little of how you must have felt, just a bit, I'm sorry I was so tough on you back then."

"Don't be." Ed shook his head. "I needed it. Sometimes we all need a smack in the head. You aren't quite there yet. Just remember what you said to me then, and be yourself, and then go home and grovel at Lia's feet and do whatever she wants… okay?"

Finally, Ethan chuckled. "Yeah, I think I can do that."

**January 27****th****, 1972  
><strong>  
>Given the choice, Reichart might have never broken the kiss. Deanna felt wonderful in his arms as he held her close on the platform of the Resembool train station. She was so alive, and warm, and spirited… and bigger! The swell of her stomach pressed lightly against him made him feel warm inside for entirely different reasons. "You look amazing," he whispered when the kiss broke.<p>

Deanna's fair cheeks colored. "I'm huge."

"And fabulous," Reichart chuckled, grinning.

"I'm so relieved," Deanna hugged him tightly around the neck. "It's silly, but I thought…"

"I wouldn't like you this way?" He hugged her back, more gently than her grip on his neck. "Can I tell you a secret?"

"What?"

He leaned back in to whisper in her ear. "I always thought you'd look incredibly sexy pregnant… but I was wrong."

Her grip stiffened. "WHAT?"

Reichart managed not to laugh, even when she almost strangled him. "My imagination fell short," he finished before she could kill him. "It wasn't good enough to fully visualize how hot you are right now." One hand moved to her belly.

"Now I know you've been away too long," Deanna replied. "Not that I mind. It's nice to be missed."

"It's even better to be home." Reichart, pack still slung over his shoulder, gently turned her shoulders with his arm and guided her towards the exit. The rest of his family hadn't come with her, but he suspected that was only so they could have a nice, private reunion. "So… is he moving yet?"

Deanna chuckled. "Yes. We have a very active baby. I've been feeling all sorts of fluttering for a couple of weeks now, though it's not hard enough to be obvious outside yet."

"I think I'm jealous." Reichart would have loved to have been able to feel what she felt. Their child growing inside, right there.

"Patience, and you'll have all the time to feel it." Deanna didn't fight his arm at all, coming along with him, close to his side. "And after, you two can play all you want and I'll get a break!"

At her words, Reichart felt slightly guilty. "Has it been difficult for you, Deanna? I mean, I know you've said everything's been just fine, but-"

"And it has, don't worry, Art," she assured him. "We're both doing just fine. It's just the usual joys and… less-joys, of being pregnant."

"I'm still sorry I haven't been here to pamper you like you deserve," Reichart admitted as they made their way back to the house. "But I promise, I'm going to make up for it now."

"As long as you let me do the same to you a little," Deanna replied. "After all, you haven't exactly been vacationing on the beach, though you are a little tanner."

"Funny that, given how much it was raining in Aerugo."

"We've gotten very little rain this winter," Deanna said. "Though we're expecting some snow soon."

"Oh good," Reichart gave her shoulders a squeeze. "We can get snowbound together." If he had an excuse to stay by her side for oh, a few months, he would be a very happy man.

* * *

><p>Night had fallen, and with it fat white flakes of snow had begun to fall as well, dancing past the porch light like falling goose down, and outside all the windows, blanketing Resembool in clean wool white.<p>

"Should we take dinner over there?" Cassie asked, sounding slightly anxious.

Aldon didn't blame her. They hadn't seen Reichart and Deanna even though they knew that their son had gotten home on the afternoon train and that they had gone home to spend time by themselves. Which, in Aldon's opinion, was a very good idea. He smiled as he looked away from the window and back at his wife. "I'd say no."

"Why not?" she asked, coming to join him. Dinner was already over and the kids had scattered to the winds around the house.

Aldon chuckled. "The bedroom light's on. The dining room isn't."

Cassie peered out the window past him towards the house on the next hill with an 'aha' look on her face. "Oh."

**February 1****st****, 1972**

"I've never been so happy to be home!" Théa exclaimed as she walked into the house, and then bolted out of Maes' site as she ran upstairs, with Rochelle tight on her heels.

"What about you?" Maes looked at his son, who was still standing in the entry way, holding a couple of bags of groceries they had picked up so that they could all actually have something to eat the next few days.

Roy smiled, a little bemused. "I'm still trying to adjust to the fact that we're actually standing here, honestly. I keep half expecting to wake up and find myself lying crammed in that tent, waiting to be eaten." The smile faded a little. "Is it always like this?"

Maes had to read past the lines of the question, but he understood what was behind it. It hadn't been a war, but any time of desperate survival left a mark. "It fades with time," he promised. "But yeah, you'll have to get used to it if you're still set on joining the military." It occurred to him that, maybe, after this, Roy might have changed his mind.

Roy nodded. "That's what I thought. Well, then I guess I should walk down to Phong's and pick up dinner. I'll be back soon, okay?" The plan for dinner was Xingese take-out. No one wanted to cook. Not tonight.

And there was no way Maes was going to make Elena cook after everything they'd been through.

"Thank you," Elena smiled at their son.

When Roy was gone, Maes turned to Elena, whose shoulders his arm was currently curled protectively around. "Well that wasn't how I thought we'd end our trip to Aerugo, but it's nice to be home."

"It is," Elena agreed, resting her head against his shoulder. She looked tired. Of course, that was normal these days.

Maes' stomach flipped again a little at the thought of another baby. Rochelle was already thirteen and now there would be a little one around again, starting all over. He'd accepted it, but there was a lot they were going to have to do to get ready. "You should sit down and rest," he suggested. "Or you could take a shower if you want and I'll get the dishes out for when Roy gets back."

"Sit with me."

Maes didn't argue, but went with Elena into the living room where they kicked off their shoes and cuddled up on the couch. Sitting quickly turned to lying down and lying down… into a much needed nap.

* * *

><p>Roy needed the time it took to walk to the Xingese restaurant and back to clear his head and just get used to the feel of Central again. Of course, they'd technically been 'out of the woods' for over a couple of weeks, but it had still seemed surreal. First there had been arranging the train trip home, but that included interviews by Cretan newspapers that had sent reporters flocking when they made stops in Pylos or elsewhere, wanting to know all about what had happened to them. Roy had been glad his father and grandmother had been the ones to deal with that. He and his sisters and his mother had spent a lot of time sleeping.<p>

And eating. Roy had been a little surprised –and dismayed- to realize he'd lost almost fifteen pounds during that ordeal. It wasn't like he'd had spare reserves to burn. He'd been told that was not surprising though, and he was sure it wouldn't last. Not as hungry as he had been.

The train ride home had been an odd disconnect, and they'd had to pick up new clothes and personal items in Creta, so nothing had been familiar, really, until they stepped off the train in Central.

And suddenly the world he'd left only a few months ago for what was supposed to be a vacation had come back to him in sharp, noisy reality. The world was crowded and loud and people, no matter how worried they might be about what they heard on the news, went about their lives with a disconnect of their own; that their life was normal and the terror to the South a somewhat distanced unpleasantness to discuss at the dinner table.

Roy had changed, he knew that, and he couldn't say he disapproved of the changes he found in himself. He understood for the first time what it meant to really face _fear_ in its most carnal form. He'd faced death in the teeth, and taking on his very survival and that of his family, and won. It might have made him feel proud of himself, if he hadn't actually had to be the one to look in those eyes, and face the reality that he could have been _eaten._

But he hadn't. He was alive, and he felt braver and more capable for it, for having an understanding of the world he hadn't before. He also felt far more confident about his alchemy. He'd always been a little cocky, teasing Trisha when they worked together. But this… what he'd had to do, pushing to his limits of the Flame alchemy he had so quietly taught himself… was much more than that. He had seen what it was really capable of; what _he_ was really capable of. With that as a demonstration, he couldn't see how he wouldn't pass the State Alchemy exam in one shot. At least not the practical portion.

He also didn't see his family the same anymore. After all that… he felt sort of foolish for how he'd dogged on his father. When everything could have fallen to pieces, Maes had figured out a plan, working with their resources and the people at hand to make it all work, and everyone –even Grandma- had fallen in with it. And his grandmother… well he'd never think of her as anything other than the living legend her friends liked to joke about within his earshot at times. Riza Hawkeye Mustang, with the ability to shoot anything she could see. It was no wonder Grandpa always wanted her to be the one at his side, even before they were romantically involved.

As for his sisters well, Roy wasn't entirely sure what to feel anymore other than protective. Théa had held up remarkably well, and so had Rochelle, considering she'd spent most of it in a fevered haze and even now only remembered half of the ordeal, and that mostly in nightmares.

But they were not as annoying as he had sometimes found them and, he thought, it had aged them as much as it had aged him. That he found both positive and yet kind of sad, because in the middle of what was already a challenging and dynamic time in their lives, his sisters had faced something like that so unprepared.

Not that Roy had been prepared, but he had been more ready than they had been. He knew how to shoot, and how to use alchemy, and camp outdoors. He'd trained in combat and basic survival. His sisters had shown little interest in any of that, and so they had been able to grow up as normal teenage girls. That, he realized, could have gotten them killed. Still both of them had rallied admirably despite their fear and lack of experience, and he had resolved that from now on he was going to cut them a little more slack.

Except when it came to beating up potential boyfriends; His sisters were too good for most of the guys they knew.

And that led his mind right back to the person he wanted to go running off to see; Trisha.

The whole ride home his mind had flitted between the jungle to home, and always they landed on his girlfriend he hadn't seen in months or even talked to. Did she know he was alive yet? Had the news reached this far? He desperately hoped so, or she was going to kill him for not telling her sooner! Still, he should go over later and see her.

Roy was still thinking about Trisha went he walked into the Xingese restaurant and nearly ran right into General Breda. "Oh, sorry, sir!" He said as he looked up, and then smiled. "I ah, didn't see you?"

The retired General looked at him and chuckled. "I don't believe it."

"It's true," Roy insisted. "Really. Anyway, I'm sorry. How are you?"

"Well enough," Breda replied. "Welcome home, Roy. Your grandmother called and told me you were all home. There's been quite a lot of news since you left Central last."

"Yes, there has been," Roy agreed. "You heard about my parents, right?"

At that, Breda's wicked grin was all Roy needed. "Yeah, Riza mentioned that. I'll have to make sure to give them my congratulations the next time I see them."

"I'm sure they'll be quite happy to see you again, sir," Roy nodded politely. "We're all happy to be home. It's been a long time and it feels a little unreal still."

"I'm sure it does. I always felt that way after a long campaign," Breda assured him with an understanding nod. "I should let you get your food. There are surely other faces you'd rather see than mine."

"Trisha," Roy blurted out before he realized how it probably sounded. His cheeks flushed warm.

Breda's laugh shook the place. "Well of course. But you know she's not here?"

"What?" Roy felt like cold water had been dumped over his head. "What do you mean she's not here?"

Breda stopped laughing. "I mean she's in Aerugo. Bueáire still I think. She went down with Sara and the others as part of the relief effort."

Trisha was in _Aerugo?_ All that time fighting his way through rainforest towards the Cretan border and his girlfriend had been in not quite the opposite direction, and much nearer.

"Sorry to spring that on you," Breda apologized. "I didn't know you hadn't heard. She's fine, last I heard. Most of them are. Other than a few riots and the plague outbreak, things have been restful."

Other than riots and plague… the man had a twisted sense of humor, or none, Roy thought. "No, it's all right. I guess I shouldn't be surprised." It was exactly what Trisha would do. If Roy had been up here, he'd have gone down in a heartbeat himself. "Thank you for letting me know, sir. I'll have to see about calling or writing her at once then… so she doesn't kill me for getting home without her getting the chance to rescue me."

Breda chuckled. "That's what I figured you'd say. Good, lad. Well, I'll be off. See you around soon."

As the old man left, Roy shook his head. Somehow, he always seemed to get interesting responses and looks out of General Breda. He supposed it had to do with the fact that everyone said he was more like Grandpa Roy than even Dad had ever been, and even though his skin was a couple of shades darker even when he hadn't been out in the Aerugo sun.

Roy was just beginning to truly get a glimpse of the enormity of the family tradition he was hoping to uphold and, possibly, surpass. But first, he needed dinner and to send a message to his girlfriend or he'd never get there.

* * *

><p>"Hey, Dad, Mom, wake up. Dinner's here."<p>

Maes blinked his eyes open and saw Rochelle standing over them, smiling. He smiled back as he realized that he and Elena had passed out together on the sofa. "We'll be there in a minute, sweetie," he promised.

"All right." Rochelle vanished out of sight around the corner.

Elena made a soft sound as she snuggled against him. "Do we have to move? I'm comfortable."

"If you want to stay here, we can," Maes replied softly, his heart fluttering. "You need all the rest you can get. Are you hungry? I'll bring your food here."

Elena opened her dark eyes and smiled at him. "I'm _famished._"

"Don't worry about moving," Roy's voice came from the kitchen. A moment later he entered the room with two heaping plates that he set down on the coffee table. "We can eat in here tonight."

"How thoughtful," Elena smiled as she sat up slowly.

Maes helped her up and then bent over and picked up both plates, handing Elena hers first. Xingese smelled so good! His stomach growled in anticipation.

Rochelle and Théa joined them with their own full plates as Roy went back and got his, and for the first servings, there was little conversation as they just enjoyed a quiet non-life-threatening family meal in the living room of their home.

Maes wasn't surprised that everyone went for seconds. While he and Elena had been asleep, the girls had changed into some of their old clothes that had been left at home –what few there were- and it was more evident than ever how tough the past months had been on them, particularly Rochelle. They had all been seen, again, by a doctor in Creta, but check-ups with the family physician were in order for everyone. Maes planned to arrange those himself tomorrow.

It was Rochelle who finally broke silence, finishing her second plate first and leaning back on her hands, legs crossed. "So, where are we going to put the baby?" she asked curiously.

A question that had also very much been on Maes' mind of late.

"Yeah, the house is big, but we're out of bedrooms," said Théa. "I mean, Elle and I were thinking we could maybe squeeze in together if you need us to."

It was clear from her face it wasn't something either of the girls were thrilled about but had discussed as a possibility. It wasn't like any of them would rather share their room with an infant after all.

"We'll consider it," Elena answered for them both. "We don't want anyone to feel like they have to move just because the family's growing."

"We might try rearranging rooms a bit," Maes nodded. There had been some consideration, privately, of letting one of the kids have one of the downstairs study's.

Roy, who was spooning thirds onto his plate, shook his head. "The baby gets my room."

"How do you figure that?" Maes looked at him. Roy was the last one he had expected to volunteer.

"Well I'm done with school in May," Roy pointed out. "I'll be eighteen, and I'm taking the State Alchemy exam. I'll be moving out before too much longer anyway, so the kiddo can have my room."

He said it so matter-of-factly that for a moment Maes was stunned. It made perfect logical sense, but he had forgotten in the chaos of the past couple of months that his oldest really was almost a legal adult. Maturity-wise, he already counted.

"Thank you, Roy," Elena spoke before Maes found words. "That does sound like it might be the best idea, though it means you'd have to move out of your room before then if we're going to get it ready."

"Yeah, I know," Roy nodded and took another bite of noodles. "I don't mind bunking out on the couch for a few weeks if I have to. I'll even help you repaint it."

"I appreciate it," Maes added. "Though you're giving it up awfully easily."

Roy shrugged. "I dunno. After everything we've been through lately, my room just doesn't seem as important. I mean, I like it, but I'm not that attached to the space, and a little kid needs their space more than I do. Really, it's fine, Dad," he smiled. "It's not like you're kicking me out or anything."

This adult Roy was going to take some getting used to, but Maes was proud of him. "That's true. As long as we keep feeding you, you won't go that far anyway."

Roy chuckled. "Nope. Not a chance."

"Good," Elena said as she leaned back, resting her head on Maes' shoulder and one hand lightly across her stomach which, at four months, already had a definite though not dramatic rounding to it. "And you'll be graduating before the baby comes, so I don't think there's any reason we need to hurry you out of there immediately."

"Though we might lock you out of the refrigerator to avoid going broke," Maes replied as he watched his son inhale his food.

"I'm not going to eat you bankrupt," Roy smirked. "Promise."

"Though we will need to rethink finances around here a little," Elena sighed. "We didn't keep much of anything after Rochelle outgrew it, so we're going to have to get new baby things."

At that the girls actually perked up. "We'll go shopping," the both said, almost in perfect unison.

Roy rolled his eyes. "I saw that one coming."

"We'll be reasonable," Rochelle stuck her tongue out at him. "Come on, it'll be exciting! And it's not like you'll have trouble finding babysitters right? After all, you've got us."

"I was counting on it," Maes replied wryly, though he was relieved that the children were taking it so well. This poor kid –whatever it ended up being- was going to end up as his or her older sisters' dress up doll for years.

Maes just hoped he still had the energy to keep up!


	11. Chapter 11

**February 10****th****, 1972**

Ethan's focus was on the patient, deep and inward, using alchemical energy to search the body for any sign of remaining virus. He had to fight hard not to let his excitement get in the way of his concentration. So far, he had found no trace of basokaria even though the patient had been near death only two days before, but had been treated with his cure-in-progress and seen nothing but rapid, regular improvement. This afternoon, her fever had broken and she had awakened.

No. Nothing. Only when he was absolutely certain did Ethan pull himself back to himself and stop focusing on the inner workings of the girl's body. He opened his eyes and smiled at the doctor across the bed. :There's no sign of illness.:

He received a grin in reply, and a whoop from Sam the nurse, who was standing off to one side. :That's the fifth patient, and no ill effects. Congratulations, Elric. I'd say we have a success. Let's see about treating the patients and start more vigorous trials on that vaccine.:

Ethan nodded, too drained to feel more than pride in his work. Elation would come later. It worked! All five of the patients who had received the trial dosage of the basokaria cure had improved, regardless of severity of condition, and been cured. This girl, a thin little thing of only ten years old, had been the roughest case. :I've got enough made to start dosing everyone in the quarantine,: he replied.

:I can make up more tonight.: It would be a long night, but worth it. He had also shown two of the other doctors locally how to mix the compound properly, though it was still ultimately most effective when combined and mixed to molecular perfection with alchemical energy.

That meant that the news and a full list of supplies –and a ready supply of those west Aerugean plants- would need to be sent to the Alchemical Laboratories in Amestris immediately. He had already send up his preliminary findings, but this was critical and certainly would be a number one priority. They just couldn't produce enough of it fast enough without the Laboratories.

:You get some rest,: Doctor Toriguez replied. :I will make certain the dose is delivered to the patience immediately.:

Ethan would have argued that he wanted to do it himself, but he knew that the other doctors could handle it, and that really they had been fighting this particular disease far longer than he had since it was much more frequent here. They deserved to be part of the cure and heroes in their own people's eyes. He nodded. :Thanks, I'll do that.: He would do that as he went to call and then wire the details of his research back up to Central!

* * *

><p>"That's fantastic!" Ed gave his son an impulsive, deep rib-crunching hug when he heard the news. "So they're going to start mass producing this cure right away back up in Central right?"<p>

Ethan nodded, looking a bit stunned. "Yeah, and they want me to return to Central soon to oversee its production myself, just to make sure that everything goes right."

"Good idea," Winry smiled. Ed knew she was as pleased as he was that not only had their son –once again- created an alchemical compound that was of critical medical importance, but he would be able to go home to his family and make up for lost time.

Ethan seemed to be thinking along the same lines. "Yeah, I need to call Lia and let her know, but it's too early still." He sighed. "So, any news I've missed the last few weeks while I was buried in work?"

"You did hear that the Mustangs turned up right?" Ed asked with a grin. He'd been relieved to hear when they turned up in southern Creta of all places, but even just the rumors –and a few wired news articles- about the adventure in question had amused him, though the reality was probably enough to make him shudder. Leave it to the Mustangs to get out of that kind of situation and make an adventure out of the tale.

"Yes, I did," Ethan chuckled.

"Then you didn't miss much," Winry replied. "Word from Bueáire is that the teams down there are almost finished, and the Havah team should be back up here in the next week. They've had a few adventures that I'm sure Sara, Tore, and Cal will just be dying to tell us."

"Wild stories for sure," Ed agreed, chuckling. He'd already heard rumors of a military unit-wide bellyache after a meal that involved gorging on not much else besides chocolate and wine… off duty of course. He'd gotten the story through the grapevine, but given that the acquisition of those particular items heavily involved a human slavery ring bust in which Tore and Cal figured rather dramatically he suspected he could get more details from them, if they'd admit to it.

"So, when are you guys going back to Resembool?" Ethan asked after a moment.

"Pretty soon," Winry replied when Ed looked at her. They were only here on her schedule now. "Coran and Gale will be leaving soon too. We've about finished with all the auto-mail patients we have. All that's left is general maintenance that anyone can do. They don't need us and we've all been gone from home long enough."

"Yeah, I'd say more than five months is long enough," Ed agreed. "I hear they're going to start pulling most of the Amestrians out this month. Aerugo has the critical help it needs, other than food, which they'll continue to buy from us as soon as the quarantine is fully lifted. Which, according to you, should be very soon." That was a relief for _everyone._

Ethan nodded. "The cure works, which means that we can treat any new cases quickly and efficiently. That will stop rapid spread. Also, the vaccine should be in the same state soon, which will nip this because we can keep folks from catching it in the first place." Most folks anyway, but it was a far cry better than what they had been dealing with.

"And all because of you," Ed commented proudly.

Ethan smiled, but he didn't look like someone who had just probably saved thousands of lives. "Yeah. Thanks, Dad. I need to get back over to the hospital so, I'll see you in a bit."

"All right."

When Ethan had gone, Ed looked at Winry. "Is it just me, or does he seem less happy about this than I would have expected?"

"It's been rough on him," Winry replied as she sat down on their bed. Ethan had caught them in their tent on lunch break, catching a quick nap. "He'll be happier when it's done, and he's sure that everyone is actually safe. You know Ethan; he's a bit of a perfectionist like that."

"Gee," Ed chuckled, sitting down and putting his arm around Winry's shoulder. "I wonder where he gets that from."

**February 15th, 1972**

Pulling out and going home from Aerugo was much more pleasant the second time around, Sara thought. At least, it was when she got to come home with every single one of her alchemists, and they were all more-or-less in one piece.

"I've half a mind to tell Alyse and Charisa about that little display of yours," she told Cal and Tore as they sat in the dining car of the train, playing cards with Jean Stevens.

Tore groaned as he discarded two and took two new cards from the deck. "I'd rather not have Charisa add gluttony to my list of sins to grumble about. She's really not a fan of that one."

"Neither's Alyse," Cal admitted with a grimace.

"I'm aware of that," Sara snickered. Still, whatever had possessed her alchemists to have their wine-and-chocolate binge, they had all suffered righteously for it the next morning with hangovers doubled by indigestion. "I'd talk to Noelle, but I don't know her as well."

"Thank goodness," Jean grinned as he discarded one card.

"Oh I'll do that," Tore replied wickedly. "Only fair if one of us suffers wrath we all do."

"Didn't we suffer enough already?" Cal grumbled, then he scowled at his hand. "I fold." He slapped it down on the table-

-and the train rocked violently as the sound of something exploding came from somewhere in front of them.

"Shit!" Tore grabbed the table as the car rocked violently.

Sara did the same, as far as grabbing the table. "What was that?" Even as she asked, she was on her feet, moving towards the car door.

The boys followed.

"Sounded like a mine or a bomb," Cal replied as they opened the door onto chaos.

Sara recognized the problem at once when she saw the Aerugeans in the trees. They looked scruffy, angry, and were shouting epithets that made it clear –to her at least- that they were working for someone who had a reason to dislike them. She jerked out her gloves. "All right guys, looks like someone wasn't happy with our little bust."

It wasn't a long fight. How could it be when they had forgotten, apparently, that they were attacking State Alchemists? Sure, they didn't carry guns, but derailing the front car of the train with the explosion had only made Sara angry, and she was sick of the crap the underbelly of Aerugo tried to throw at her and her men.

A few whirlwinds, lightning bolts, walls of dirt, and a small flood later, the issue was taken care of with only minor wounds on the Amestrian side.

"Everyone all right?" Sara asked as she finished tying off the rope around two of the Aerugean insurgents. She'd get back on the train and radio for Aerugean law enforcement in a minute.

"For the most part," Tore nodded, looking sweaty but otherwise unharmed. He also looked concerned. "But they winged Cal."

"How badly?" Sara moved past him. Cal was sitting on the stairs of the train car, where a medic was already patching up a deep, bloody gouge in the meat of Cal's right upper arm. "Can't visit Aerugo without taking home a souvenir, can you, Whitewater?"

Cal looked up at her, barely wincing as the medic carefully stitched his arm closed. "Well you know, I thought I might like an arm to match the leg, but the guy missed."

"Ha ha. Funny." Sara looked down at him. "You feeling all right?"

"Nothing a shot of tequila won't fix," Cal replied stoically, a sign Sara knew that he really was in pain. If it was only mildly irritating pain, he'd be joking about it. She could tell, however, that at the moment he was dead serious.

"We'll find a bit of that later," Sara replied, not quite promising him anything. She couldn't, not as the commanding officer on this mission. Oh how happy she was going to be to get home. "Now get back inside and think about how to improve your ability to dodge and block gunfire."

At that, Cal cracked a grin. "Sure thing, Twilight."

Sara sighed as she headed for the front of the train. "Shock, you round everyone up and get this train back on the tracks. I've got to radio in to the local authorities and then give Command an update on our status. It looks like we're going to be a little late."

**February 19****th****, 1972**

As he stepped out onto the train platform in Central station, Ethan was afraid Lia and the children wouldn't be there waiting for him. After all, every time they had talked for the past couple of months, it had been a fight or at best brief. Besides, it was late at night, he reasoned, so there was a good chance she might have left the children home in bed. But maybe with a sitter?

But he stood there in the crowd, and watched Coran and Gale walk off together, arm in arm, heading home to their apartment and Rockbell Auto-mail.  
>The crowds began to thin…and no one was there.<p>

_What if she's really that angry? _The unpleasant thought lurked in his mind, plaguing Ethan as it had for weeks now. He knew what he was going to do about it, but that didn't mean it would go as planned necessarily. Lia wasn't mom, he wasn't Dad, and sometimes even when he thought he knew how she'd take something, he could still be wrong.

But it was still depressing to be left standing alone on a train platform at nine in the evening.

"Hey, Ethan!"

A male voice; definitely not Lia, but Ethan was glad to see Will when his cousin walked onto the platform in his long, winter duster-style jacket. He must have come straight from the University campus, because he was wearing slacks, and a dress-shirt, sweater-vest, and a tie.

Ethan smiled wryly. "Hello, Professor."

Will chuckled as he joined him. "Hey there, Doc. Sorry I'm late. Class got out, and then I had four students with questions."

"They wouldn't happen to have been girls would they?" Ethan asked with a smirk.

Will rolled his eyes. "By happenstance, yes. They don't get too overt thankfully, or I'd probably have to sic Ren on them."

"Oh that wouldn't be good. They might not survive." Ethan found it amusing that Will was one of the more popular professors at the university. He doubted all of his students were really interested in history and philosophy and anthropology, but his classes were full to the brim every semester so far.

"Yeah, that's true. C'mon, let's get you home." Will took Ethan's duffle. "Lia asked me to get you so she could get the kids to bed on time. You look pretty ragged, Ethan," he said with more familiar concern as they headed out of the station.

"Don't tell Lia that," Ethan replied with a wince. "She'll probably shout at me about it."

"You two still haven't made up?" Will looked askance at him.

Geez, did everyone know they were arguing? Well, Ren and Will certainly would know, he supposed that was all right. "No, I haven't had a chance to get down on my knees and grovel at her feet yet, which I intend to do as soon as I get home. I hate having her mad at me."

"Sounds like a safe tactic." Will led the way to the car, tossed Ethan's duffle in the back, and got into the driver's side.

Ethan got in on the other side. "Yeah. I thought about flowers but I don't know which kind says 'sorry I almost died on you again.'"

Will chuckled. "You'd have to ask Ren that one. But I think the proper answer is whatever type of flowers the woman in question likes most. Though I think Lia will be happy with just you tonight, no matter how bedraggled you look."

Ethan sighed and leaned his head back against the seat. "I really hope so, Will."

It was a quiet ride the rest of the drive home, at least on Ethan's side. He asked about Will's work and the kids, and Will was happy to chatter at length about his classes and what Minxia, Michio, and Kamika had been up to.

When he got out of the car at the house, Ethan felt mildly readier to enter the house and face home. At least Central felt less strange, though it was pretty chilly, especially compared to the border.

"Good luck. Give me a call if you want to have lunch tomorrow," Will said with a grin as he leaned out the window. "On me."

"I'll take you up on that," Ethan grinned back, then watched Will pull out and leave before he walked up to the door and pulled out his keys.

He heard Brigitte going mad on the inside of the door before he got it open. "Hey there girl, hush now," he grinned as he crouched down and pet her beneath her pointed ears. Brigitte bounced up and licked his face, her curly tail wagging madly.

"She the only one you missed?"

Ethan looked up at Lia, who was in a soft, silky nightgown already and a warm robe, but she didn't look at all angry. "Not half as much as I missed you," he admitted, standing and moving forward. When she didn't push him away, he pulled her close and was gratified with a warm hug. He kissed her gently, and once again she reciprocated. "Oh, Lia," he breathed into her hair. "I'm so sorry, love. I've missed you so much."

Lia's grip on him tightened. "You scared me," she replied softly. "Don't ever do that to me again."

"I won't," Ethan promised fervently. "Any of it." He straightened up so he could look in her eyes. "It's been killing me inside knowing how much I hurt you."

"Don't phrase it like that," Lia winced.

"Sorry, but it's true." Ethan brought one hand up to the curve of her face. "I never thought my work could put us at odds before now, and I hated it. I'll do anything you want to make it up to you, anything just name it."

"Anything?" Lia looked surprised.

"Yes, anything," Ethan reiterated. "What do you want, Lia? What can I do to make up for my stubbornness?"

Lia looked hesitant for a moment, before blurting out, "I want my mother to move in with us."

Ethan stopped mouth-open to agree, when the words sank in. "What?"

"She's lonely, Ethan," Lia went on quickly. "She's living all by herself in the house without Daddy and I know she'd be happier up here with us. At least for a while?"

He had said anything, and it was a fair request Ethan supposed. His parents came for months at a time. Of course it had been their house first, but Lia's points were valid, and Ethan really didn't have anything against his mother-in-law, though she was much more proper and formal and… well stuck up, than his family. There was a reason he and Lia had always run around his folks' place and not hers.

"Ethan?" Lia was waiting for him to answer.

"Sure," Ethan blurted out his reply. "Yeah, your Mom can come and stay with us, for as long as you want." He might eat his words, but surely it would be all right.

Lia's face lit up with relief and joy and she hugged him again tightly. "Oh, thank you, Ethan! I'm so glad. Mom will be so happy." She kissed him again, much more enthusiastically, and for a moment Ethan forgot just what it was he'd promised. It had been months since he'd held Lia in his arms, and her touch, her presence, was electrifying. Needs forgotten and suppressed in the solitary nature of his work resurfaced with his wife so close.

It didn't take long for Lia to notice either. "At least you don't seem too much the worse for wear," she replied, smiling as she brushed against him before standing back. "Don't you _eat_ when you're not home?"

Ethan chuckled. "Well you know, it's hard to get excited about anything that isn't your cooking."

"Yeah, right." Lia poked him in the chest. "You'd eat cardboard if it was cooked and you were hungry enough."

"Only if you made it," Ethan replied, pulling her close again. He'd eaten on the train. The only hunger he had, now that he knew his wife wasn't going to kill him or kick him out, was for her. "But that's not what I'm hungry for. There was food in Aerugo, but no you."

"I ought to make you beg for it," Lia replied with a contemplative expression, but it didn't last. Ethan could see it cracking. Clearly she had missed him too. "But I just can't. I'm sorry, Ethan. I've just been so stressed out, and worried, and… I'm so glad you're home," she fell into his arms and kissed him again.

It seemed that all was forgiven.

**February 18****th****, 1972**

Cal knew the platform at the station was crowded, and there were plenty of people he knew on it as well as disembarking. He was peripherally aware of Charisa and Dare tackling Tore, and Sara hugging Franz and James. But his eyes were held by only one sight –well, three. Alyse, holding Charlie, with Gloria clinging to her long coat, hurrying forward and falling into his arms as he reached out and gathered them all to him with a rush of joy and relief at the rightness and the feeling of home that enfolded him with the warmth of his wife and children; the scents of lavender soap and chocolate chip cookies.

The long hug turned into a quick, sweet, warm, kiss… that might have turned into something far less appropriate if they hadn't been standing in public. Cal broke it only with the greatest reluctance. "I missed you, beautiful."

Alyse smiled. "I missed you too," she replied softly. "I'm so glad you're home."

"Me too, Daddy!" Gloria giggled, holding up her arms. She looked absolutely adorable, her curly hair up in pig-tails and wearing her little lavender winter coat.

"Is that my girl?" Cal laughed, scooping her up for another bear hug. "No way. This grown up pretty lady?"

Gloria kissed his cheek as her little arms went around his neck. "Of course it's me, Daddy. You're silly."

"Yes, yes I am," he grinned, feeling like a fool, and grateful to be one. "And I've never been so happy to be anywhere." He set Gloria down again so he could pick up his duffel. "Let's go home, and you can tell me everything you've been up to." Then he smiled at Alyse. "And maybe we can get… reacquainted."

Alyse chuckled softly, then wrinkled her nose. "Absolutely. But first, shower… and brush your teeth… Colonel," she added softly with a knowing look.

That was his wife, and her amazing nose. He'd had his last cigarette for the trip two days ago, and she could still scent it on him. Not that he needed them here. Cal smiled. "Yes, ma'am."

* * *

><p>Jean came off the train behind the main crush, though he was just as eager to get out on the platform. He'd written ahead, letting Noelle know when he was supposed to be in. He couldn't wait to see her, and his son, again. He hurried off the train, smiling at the already thinning crowd, and stopped dead as he took in the sight of Jay and Noelle… a rather pregnant Noelle!<p>

Jean dropped his bag right there on the platform, stunned.

Noelle's smile was huge, "Welcome home and surprise!"

"I'll say!" Jean replied, laughing then as he pulled her and Jay into a big family hug. "Why didn't you tell me?" He wasn't angry, just surprised. "This is great!"

"I thought about it," Noelle admitted, returning the squeeze with enthusiasm. "Oh believe me, every time we spoke I thought about it. But it just seemed to be more fun to surprise you when you got home!"

Jean shook his head. Only Noelle… "Well I'm very surprised," he assured her. "And it is fun. So when are we due?"

"Late June," Noelle answered almost instantly. "And I'm twenty-one weeks along if that's your next question and the baby's heartbeat sounds wonderful if that's your question after that!"

"Aren't you on top of things?" Jean kissed her warmly. It felt so good to be home. "So does that mean you've already somehow divined a gender and decorated the whole house to match?"

Noelle laughed, "No, I'm not that good yet." She entwined her hands with Jean's and Jay's. "We did redo Jay's room though, right Jay?"

Jay grinned. "Yep! It looks cool!"

"Well I can't wait to see it," Jean grinned, ruffling his son's hair with his free hand. "Come on, let's go home, and the two of you can babble at me everything I've missed in the last four months." Because he knew, without offering, that Noelle was going to do it anyway.

"We just did what we normally do," replied Noelle. Then, she snuggled closer into Jean's side, "Except miss you far too much. I'm glad you're home."

Jean leaned back. "Well it's going to be quite a while before I go anywhere else."


	12. Chapter 12

**February 22****nd****, 1972**

"I've got it," Roy called out a moment after the doorbell rang.

Maes looked up, but didn't bother to get up since his son had it. He was too busy going through the cabinets deciding what to make for dinner. Elena was up at the Embassy and he'd promised to have something ready for everyone when she got home. The girls were back at school for the first time in months, but Roy had asked to wait until Trisha got home and they finished the State Alchemy Exam. It was coming up on very short notice, but Roy wanted to go for it anyway and had been focusing on his alchemy.

Maes had decided not to argue.

"Who is it, Roy?" Maes called out after a minute when he didn't hear anything.

He got no response. Curious, Maes went into the other room.

Roy and Trisha were glued together and lip locked standing just inside the still-open door.

"Welcome home, Trisha," Maes said, breaking the moment.

"Oh, hi Mr. Mustang," Trisha said, face still flushed as she and Roy parted. "It's good to see you."

"Thank you, though I'm pretty sure it's not me you came to visit."

Roy gave him a brief 'I might kill you after all' look, that eased when Trisha clearly didn't mind the teasing.

"No, I didn't," Trisha admitted.

"Yeah uh, you don't mind if I miss dinner do you?" Roy asked.

He didn't have to be physically edging toward the door for Maes to get the hint. "No, I don't mind. Just don't-"

"Don't what?" Roy smirked. "Do something you would do?"

"All right smart-aleck, go out on your date before I change my mind and decide the back yard needs weeding before dinner," Maes snapped a dish-towel at him. The yard really did need it, but that could wait.

"I'm going!" Roy laughed as he grabbed Trisha and practically dragged her out the door.

Maes watched them go. Something he would do indeed… he wasn't worried about that, yet. He just hoped that they both did well in the exam, and didn't have trouble reconnecting after everything that had happened lately. He knew only too well how much people changed as they grew up, particularly at that age, and he couldn't help but wonder how it would play out.

* * *

><p>"What was your Dad talking about?" Trisha asked Roy curiously as he put his arm around her waist and they walked down the street towards the shopping district.<p>

Roy glanced down at her, and his ears turned pink even as he chuckled. "Oh, I think maybe I've been teasing him too much about Mom being pregnant again. You heard about that right?"

"Yeah I did and… oh!" Trisha's eyes widened briefly, and she almost went back to throw something in the man's face. "I can't believe he said that!" For that matter, she couldn't remember the last time she'd heard Roy and his father joke like that, or at all.

"Yeah well, the jungle can make you a little wild," Roy chuckled, kissing her cheek without missing a step. "Damn it's good to see you, Trish. How was Bueáire?"

"Other than devoid of you?" She asked, leaning into his side a little more. "It was… heart-breaking really, and a little scary. There were riots sometimes, and protestors, and any group that wasn't happy with the government seemed to take its chance to rile things up, but so many people were just focused on putting their lives back together. The Earthquake could have been worse there. They lost buildings, but not as many people, and that disease the… whatever it was called that Uncle Ethan's come up with a cure for… well it didn't come down to Bueáire."

"Thank goodness," Roy replied fondly. "Elle almost died from it."

"But I'm more interested in hearing this story about you torching man-eating jaguars?" Trisha turned the questions back on her boyfriend with a smile. "Torching, Roy?"

She felt gratified as she watched him actually turn pink. "Yeah, I ah, was meaning to tell you about that eventually. I was…"

"Sneaking looks at your Grandpa's notes in Grandpa Ed's library?" Trisha guessed, and once again Roy nodded. "I wish you'd told me. I'd have helped you out."

"I didn't want us both getting in trouble if I got caught," Roy shook his head. "And really, all I'd ever done was small very controlled flames until we were attacked. It was… wow it was amazing, actually," he said, a little breathlessly.

"Then you'll have to show me sometime," Trisha replied with a smile. "Like next week maybe, at the Exam?"

"I hope we do all right," Roy replied, easily sidetracked from Aerugo discussion by the mention of the exam.

"You survived the wild and I was working with General Kane in Bueáire. We're not out of practice, Roy," Trisha replied, feeling fairly confident. "In fact, we might be the best we've ever been."

"Then let's wow them," Roy grinned. "So, now that we've escaped our parents, what would you like to do this evening, beautiful?"

"After all the adventure lately you mean?" Trisha chuckled. "I think, dinner and a movie sounds great. Something silly or romantic, and not at all adventurous."

"Well let's see what's playing then," Roy agreed. "And not Aerugean food."

"Oh no!" Trisha laughed. "I think I've had enough of that for a while." But definitely not nearly enough of him.

"Glad to know we still agree on things." Roy stopped long enough to turn her and kiss her again, right there on the sidewalk.

Trisha kissed him back, not caring who might look. Roy was different but then, so was she. And he was right; they did still seem to be in sync. It just felt good to have him back.

**February 25****th****, 1972**

"You know you can't eat like that forever," Charisa commented from above Tore as she looked down at him, sprawled indolently on the couch.

Stuffed to the gills after a delicious dinner, Tore just grinned back up at her. "Don't challenge me." Most anyone who'd gone into Aerugo this time had come back lighter than when they left. Something about limited rations and hard labor –and alchemy use- always did that.

"It wasn't a challenge." She wrinkled her nose, but then dropped down on the ledge of couch he left available. "And it's really hard to enjoy a night alone with you when you're incapable of moving." She poked him in the side. "We're lucky Dad wanted to take Dare to that new children's movie tonight."

"That's true," Tore had to admit. "I never figured your Dad for the cartoons type."

"He's a child at heart." Charisa chuckled, then leaned over and kissed Tore lightly on the lips.

Full or not, Tore couldn't resist pulling Charisa down on top of him. "Well I'm not."

"No, you're a dirty-minded teenager at heart," Charisa teased him, though she didn't fight his embrace. She hadn't turned him down since he got home. Maybe Breda had taken Dare as an excuse to get out of the house.

Tore chuckled and kissed her deeply. "Yes, I am." She felt so… good…

Until her elbow jabbed him in the stomach.

"Watch it!" Tore grimaced, rubbing his side and swallowing at the lurch of his very full insides. "Ugh."

Charisa rolled to the side with an apologetic grimace. "Sorry. I warned you."

"Yeah, yeah. Maybe I should finish digesting first," he agreed, lying back down. "I don't suppose you've seen the news today?" he asked. He'd spotted one article earlier he thought might interest her.

"Only some of it," Charisa admitted. "We were really busy at work." She reached over him for the paper. "Why? Was there something interesting?"

"Yeah, check out the business page," Tore took it out of her hands and flipped through it to the front of the business section.

"Business? Since when do you read business news?" Charisa asked, giving him an odd look.

"Trust me." There it was, Tore flipped it open and stuck it under her nose. "Read that."

Charisa picked it up and looked down at the lines. Tore waited, trying very hard not to grin as she read the news.

"That bastard totally deserves that!" She crowded exultantly before blushing. "Sorry, I mean. Really?"

Tore's face split into a broad grin. "Yeah, it really happened. Valentino's furniture had heavy investment in Aerugean woods. The market's gone bust there, and they've lost out on millions." He'd nearly cheered himself when he saw the paper at HQ. Raul's family's company wasn't quite bankrupt, but they were very likely to be in the red for several years making up for the investment loss.

Charisa smiled and snuggled up next to him. "Couldn't have happened to a better guy."

**February 26****th****, 1972**

Trisha stared at the board of names posted on the Central HQ training grounds, almost fearing to see what was there. Yesterday she and Roy had taken the written exam. Assuming they passed, this morning they would their interviews and, after that, the practical examinations. But had they passed the written? She knew that, thanks to both of their Grandfathers and their views on alchemy, she and Roy were actually now the exceptions to the rule, coming in and taking the exam without first going through the intensive year course that trained potential State Alchemists.

Not that everyone took the class. Tore hadn't, but Trisha knew her mother, Roy's father, and Uncle Cal had all sat through the classes before the exam. Still, she and Roy had the benefit of learning everything from Grandpa Ed and her mother themselves. Surely that counted for something, right?

"Well?" Roy asked as he walked up, sipping coffee in a thick paper cup. "How did we do?"

"Since when do you drink gourmet coffee?" Trisha asked, teasing him to help calm her own nerves.

"Since I discovered that the Aerugean stuff is way better than the crap they tried to serve us yesterday?" Roy chuckled. "Have a sip."

"No thanks. I'm jittery enough already." Trisha turned back to the board and made herself really focus. The finalists were listed in alphabetical order, not by number, so she scanned down to the H first, looking for Pass or Fail. That was all that was listed though she knew that she could request the results from General Kane later.

Heimler, Trisha…. Pass.

Still holding her breath, Trisha's eyes scanned quickly across to the Ms.

Mustang, Roy…. Pass.

"We did it!" She breathed heavily with relief. "We passed the written!"

"Was there any doubt?" Roy grinned giving her shoulders a squeeze. "We have fabulous teachers, and study buddies," he added with a wink.

Trisha chuckled. This was true. They had each other and together they could accomplish anything. "That's right. So, let's get through these interviews and get on to the good part." She was looking forward to the alchemy demonstration portion of the exam. On that, she was sure she had a skill that the military would find useful. No one else they had knew how to use it. And Roy well, how could they not want another flame alchemist?

* * *

><p>"I think that was one of the toughest rounds of interviews we've had in a while," Sara commented to Kane as they walked back to the office. "You and Rehnquist were grueling."<p>

"As if you would have been any easier on them," Kane chuckled.

"No, I wouldn't," Sara agreed. In truth, she might have been harder but then, that was part of why this year it wasn't her rotation. With Trisha taking the test, she didn't want there to be any sign of favoritism. It was the same as when she had taken the test. Her father had chosen not to be part of the decision process even though it was his program she had come up through and he had ever right to have a say. "What did you think of them?"

"It's a pretty average bunch," Kane admitted with a shrug. "With a few potential stars in the mix. I mean, we have a lot more people passing the first portion of the exam these days, even the interviews, and since we're trying to rebuild numbers still, that's not a bad thing."

Out of the forty people to take the exam, twenty-eight had actually passed the written and gone on to the interviews. Out of them, Sara knew that fifteen were still being actively considered for positions if they demonstrated that their alchemy could be useful to the government in either a martial or other useful capacity. Now-a-days, other forms of alchemy and research were much more acceptable.

"It's a bit easier than it was when we tested isn't it?" Sara asked with a smile.

"And you had it easy compared to our first class," Kane replied. "Marcus, Marion, and I were surprised they passed three. In the past you were lucky to get one or two. Of course, that was also because so few met the standard. Education has improved."

"So what do you think they've got planned for their demonstrations?"

"Not sure, but you can bet they're going to be interesting," said Kane as he glanced over at her. "When I heard Mustang had picked up flame alchemy after all, I have to admit, I was a bit concerned, and I still am. But he seems like a very stable, level-headed young man. You've taught him."

"I have," Sara nodded, having no problem talking about the other student she shared with her father. "Roy's never given me trouble, unless you count the fact that he's dating my daughter. He's a very meticulous alchemist, and he uses his brain and he's not reckless. Though I'm not sure how I feel about the fact he managed to teach himself flame alchemy. Riza specifically asked that we not teach it to him, and we didn't."

"Can't blame him for wanting to learn it." Kane said as they entered the office. "Not after what Flame did, and even with the troubles Firebrand had, he was an incredible alchemist. It's a family legacy."

"Dating back to his great-grandfather," Sara nodded. "You did know it was Riza's father who codified the flame alchemy, didn't you?"

Kane nodded. "You're right. I'd almost forgotten. Well, I just hope _this_ Roy Mustang is as good as his namesake."

"He will be," Sara said after a moment. "I really think he will be."

* * *

><p>Trisha stood in the middle of the circle, and closed her eyes and concentrated. She knew that Kane knew about her sound amplification trick, but there were a few things she had figured out with her ability that she wanted to demonstrate as far as manipulating air waves and pressure. So she stood, her hands cuffed, and concentrated. She didn't wear gloves though she had drawn her circle on the ground. Quietly, slowly, she bent down and pressed her hands to the circle.<p>

As the energy began to flow, she controlled it, focused it. First, sound; she reached out to the three men standing off to the side; Generals Kane and Brewster, and President Rehnquist. Quietly she wove air and sound until it reached their ears the way she wanted and she whispered, every so softly, though to them it would sound clear in their ears, "I hope you enjoy the show, Sirs."

A moment later she whipped air so loud it cracked as she focused it sharply and jabbed it into the lock on the cuffs, forcing the mechanism open, and the cuffs dropped to the ground. She could have done it softer, or more subtly and silently, but the effect was what she wanted as she heard small gasps from the people around her.

Trisha opened her eyes. Rehnquist's face was neutral, but Brewster looked interested, and Kane slightly… amused?

"Thank you, Miss Heimler," Kane said, and nothing else before he turned to the next alchemist in line. "Mustang, you're up."

"Nice work," Roy whispered in her ear as he passed her.

"Thanks. Your turn," she replied.

Roy walked out to the middle of the circle, and Trisha returned to her spot to watch, eager to see what he had planned. He hadn't even told her exactly what he was planning, though Trisha would have bet Grandpa Ed's old State Alchemist watch it involved fire.

It turned out to be far more than that. Trisha watched with interest as he drew a very complex circle like one she'd never seen before, though it was a modification of the one Roy had used before going to Aerugo. He took his time, but the transmutation itself happened in less than fifteen seconds.

One moment, Roy was crouching there doing nothing, in the next a circle of the earth seemed to drop away from right in front of their feet, and up from the center of a pit three feet wide and six feet deep that suddenly surrounded Roy, a wall of flame shot straight upward, but so smooth and so even that it almost didn't look like fire at all, save for the intense heat it gave off.

And he held it, for thirty seconds.

"That's enough, Mustang," Kane called out.

"Yes, Sir." And the flames dropped and extinguished.

Trisha stared at her boyfriend in wonderment. She had always known he was talented, as well as skilled, but she had no idea he had that much control of so much raw power!

Apparently no one else had either. The others who had made it to the final cut stared at Roy as he returned to his spot outside the circle, and the next alchemist moved forward.

Roy met her eyes as he turned around to face front, and winked.

* * *

><p>A State Alchemist was supposed to be professional, capable, and calm. Well, maybe not calm. From what Trisha had heard, neither Grandpa Ed nor the Flame Alchemist had ever been particularly calm people, no matter how put-together Grandpa usually seemed. This was good, because Trisha was just doing her best not to hyperventilate as she sat in a room with the other alchemists who were all waiting for the same thing she was; to find out how many of them had passed the Exam.<p>

"Relax," Roy patted her hand, earning him a couple of odd looks from other alchemists.

Trisha smiled at him. "This is relaxed as I get right now. How can you be so calm?"

"Because I don't see how you could possibly have not gotten in," he replied more softly, mostly not to be overheard by the others in the room.

The door opened, and Trisha forgot what she was going to say in response as a Second Lieutenant stepped in and nodded, looking around the room. "If the following people would please come with me," he said, looking down then at the list in his hand. "Cardiff, Heimler, Johansson, and Mustang."

For a moment, Trisha wasn't entirely sure she had heard correctly, until Roy was standing and giving her a nudge. Then she came back to herself and stood, gathering her dignity, and followed the Second Lieutenant down the hall, taking her cue from the others and not speaking.

Soon enough they found themselves in an office she knew well, having come here from time to time as a child with her mother. Trisha tried not to smile like an idiot as they were led into General Kane's office, and the door closed behind them.

Kane was standing behind his desk, with that serious expression Trisha remembered from Aerugo. "Congratulations. You have been chosen as our newest crop of State Alchemists. Here are your orders," he gestured to envelopes sitting on his desk. "Inside you will find your official rank as well as the State Alchemist title that President Rehnquist has personally picked for each of you." At that, he grinned. "Welcome to the military."

Trisha took her orders with decorum and took her time reading through them even though she knew the majority of what it entailed. She was to have the rank of Major, and from there on down to the part she really wanted to read; her title. What would they call her? What name would she have that would strike fear into the enemy?

_You have hereby been given the title of the Whisper Alchemist._

Whisper. Well, she supposed it was accurate enough, but Trisha couldn't help feeling just, for a moment, disappointed. Who was afraid of a whisper?

"Hey, that's a good one."

"Read your own papers," Trisha jerked hers away from Roy, who was leaning over her shoulder.

"I did, Whisper," Roy grinned.

"And so what name did they give you?" Trisha asked.

"Firestorm."

"At least yours is fierce," Trisha sighed.

"What's wrong with Whisper?" Roy asked, lowering his voice as they were dismissed and allowed to leave Kane's office. "I think it sounds… deadly."

"Deadly?" Trisha looked at him askance.

"Yeah. The only thing that's ever scared me was that Jaguar, Trish, and he was absolutely silent until the kill." Roy shuddered and for a moment he seemed to be staring into something else. "No one hears you coming. That's your talent. And it fits. I mean, your mother's name is Twilight, and that's not something people would think of as fierce. It's more subtle than that. My name's just as blatantly obvious as Dad's, and Grandpa's."

"Another Mustang flame alchemist in the military," Trisha smiled at him, feeling a whole lot better. "What on Earth is Amestris going to do with you?"

Roy smiled back. "Hopefully, a lot."

* * *

><p><em>Author's Note: 116/12. Finis! Another generation of State Alchemists takes the stage. I wonder just how much trouble and adventure they'll get up to. More story coming with a new story next week!_


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